never did see such a rabble as it was; and
although I think I have improved it, it is still sadly wanting. Now,
both men and officers, although ragged and perhaps slightly
disreputable, are in capital order and well disposed."

Before his arrival, the soldiers had had no regular pay. They were
allowed to "loot," or plunder, the towns they took, and for each town
taken they were paid so much.

At once Gordon began to get his ragamuffin army into shape.

He arranged that the soldiers were to get their pay regularly, but were
to have no extra pay for the places which they took. Any man caught
plundering a town that was taken was to be shot. He replaced the
adventurers of all nations, many of them drunken rogues, who were the
army's officers, by English officers lent by the British Government.
He drilled his men well. He practised them in attacking fortified
places, and he formed a little fleet of small steamers and Chinese
gunboats. The chief of these was the _Hyson_, a little paddle steamer
that could move over the bed of a creek on its wheels when the water
was too shallow to float it.

The army, too, was given a uniform, at which not only the rebels but
the Chinese themselves at first mocked, calling the soldiers who wore
it "Sham Foreign Devils."

But soon so well had Gordon's army earned its name of "The
Ever-Victorious Army," that the mere sight of the uniform they wore
frightened the rebels.

In one month Gordon's army was an army and not a rabble, and the very
first battles that it fought were victories.

With 3000 men he attacked a garrison of 10,000 at Taitsan, and after a
desperate fight the rebels were driven out.

From Taitsan the victorious army went on to Quinsan, a large fortified
city, connected by a causeway with Soochow, the capital of the province.

All round Quinsan the country was cut up in every direction with creeks
and canals. But Gordon knew every creek and canal in that flat land.
He knew more now than any other man, native or foreigner, where there
were swamps, where there were bridges, which canals were choked with
weeds, and which were easily sailed up. He made up his mind that the
rebels in Quinsan must be cut off from those in Soochow.

At dawn, one May morning, eighty boats, with their large white sails
spread out like the wings of big sea-birds, and with many-coloured
flags flying from their rigging, were seen by the rebel garrison at
Quinsan sailing up the canal toward