officer. Nearly all our old wooden ships which had been active in the civil war visited the Japan station between 1866 and 1896.

After three years' service in Asiatic waters the crew of the United States steamship Oneida were happy in setting their faces homeward January 24, 1870. Joy soon changed to woe. Within an hour after leaving Yokohama and the cheers from her sister crafts, the gallant ship was beneath the waves. Struck amidships at 6 P.M. by the British mailsteamer Bombay, Captain Eyre, off Saratoga Spit, the Oneida sunk in fifteen minutes. All on board except four officers and sixty men were drowned. Their monument is annually hung on Memorial day with flowers, the protests of the resurrection hope against the might and mystery of death.

XII-KOREA.

JAPAN had forged ahead in enlightened progress, but Korea persisted in her mood of morose seclusion. Besides American vessels shipwrecked on her inhospitable coasts, the crew of the schooner General

Sherman, which, early in August, 1866, entered the Ping-Yang River, met violent deaths. Whether "merchant or in vader," aggrieved or aggressors, those on board lost their lives. The Koreans, first with fire-rafts and then with weapons, had attacked and slain them all. The facts in the case were investigated and found about twenty years afterward by Ensign John B. Bernadou, the first naval officer wounded in our present war with Spain.

To inquire into the General Sherman affair, and to make a treaty, an American force, consisting of the Colorado, Alaska, Benicia, Palos, Ashuelot, and Monocacy, under "fighting John Rodgers," moved into the Han River, on which Han-Yang, the Seoul or capital of Korea, is situated. With Mr. F. F. Low, our minister in Peking, with whom was the responsibility of peace or war, our men caught sight of the superb scenery of Korea at Boisée Island, May 30. Only the Palos and the old doubleender Monocacy, now the Noah's Ark of the Asiatic squadron, could enter the river. On June 2, leaving the heavy vessels behind, four steam-launches and the two gunboats moved out to the work of survey

66

ing. Around the bend of the river was a whirlpool as bad as Hell Gate," and a channel only three hundred feet wide. To the surprise of the Americans, there was a fort and a new earth-work mounting several thirty-two pounders, and hundreds of jingals lashed by fives to logs. The treacherous Korean commander was one second too late. A storm of fire burst and clouds of smoke rose over the fort, while the water was torn into foam and our men soused in the splash. One American was wounded, but of the two or three hundred Korean missiles of many sizes not one injured a ship or boat. The bow guns of the launches, the cannon of the moving Palos, and the 10-inch shells of the Monocacy at anchor quickly cleared the fort of its defenders, the white-coated Koreans flying like sheep before the welldropped shells.

Those who know the inside of the Hermit Nation's history do not wonder at the silliness, obstinacy, and ill-concealed contempt of the Tai Wen Kun's cat's-paws, called officers, who from the first rudely rejected all offers of intercourse. This prince-father, with heart of stone and bowels of iron, an intense hater of foreigners and Christianity, was then the

virtual ruler of Korea. Admiral Rodgers allowed ten days for some apology for the treacherous attack, but none coming, an expedition of chastisement was prepared. The two gunboats, four launches, and twenty boats carried ten companies of infantry with seven pieces of artillery, the 105 marines and 546 sailors being or ganized as a landing force. With the sailors of the Monocacy and Palos, this expedition, under Captain Homer C. Blake, numbered 759 men in all. Among the active officers were Winfield Scott Schley, Silas Casey, C. M. Chester, L. A. Kimberly, Douglas Cassel, Seaton Schroeder, Albion W. Wadhams, and others now famous.

The Monocacy, strengthened with two 9-inch guns from the Colorado, led the way up the river June 10, and quickly breached the wall of stone, ten feet high, and emptied with her shells the first of the five forts built on three promontories. Our men landed eight hundred yards below the fort, and went into camp. After destroying everything warlike in the stone fort and the water-battery, they bivouacked under the stars, the marines guarding the outpost. In the dark the whiteclothed Koreans moved about like ghosts,

firing on our pickets. The next day, dragging their howitzers over the hills, our men moved towards the next line of fortifications, called the "middle" fort. After the Monocacy had shelled it into silence, and the marines found it deserted, the sailors destroyed everything in it.

Up hill and down dale in this country, rough to soldiers dragging cannon, but a dream of beauty to tourist and poet, our men moved to the main stronghold, which seemed perched like an eagle's eyry upon a high rocky bluff. How could such a citadel be stormed by men without wings to fly? This fort, mounting 153 guns, large and small, was fully garrisoned by stalwart tigerhunters from the north. To the left thousands of armed natives were gathering in dark masses on the flanks of the Americans, and in a rush on the howitzer companies of the

hilated by the rifles of McLean's sailors and the canister of Cassel's howitzer battery. About 350 Koreans were slain. Only twenty prisoners, all wounded, were taken alive. The other two forts, open to the rear from the main work, were easily entered.

On our side, Lieutenant McKee and two other men were killed, and ten wounded. Five forts, 50 flags, 481 jingals and can

rear-guard and outposts they might overwhelm their foes. Some of our men were already prostrated by the heat. Something must be done quickly. From a ravine, up the steep incline of a cone 150 feet high, our men must climb in face of jingal and musket fire. Fortunately the shrapnel of the howitzers kept the clouds of warriors on the flanks at a distance, while the Monocacy's shells had breached the walls. At the right moment Casey gave the order, and up the ladderlike cliffs our men rushed amid a rain of jingal balls. When the tiger-hunters could no longer load their clumsy pieces, stones, dirt, arrows, and spears were their weapons. Fighting with desperation in the hand-to-hand struggle, the Koreans chanted a death-dirge in melancholy cadence. The majority were slain inside the walls, and the few fugitives were quickly anni

non (27 being heavy guns), and hundreds of matchlocks were captured as the result of the two days' operation. Courage, zeal, and discipline marked our heroes throughout. Except possibly in the disembarkation on a mud flat, it is difficult, from a naval point of view, to see how the operations could have been more wisely planned or more scientifically carried out. Some of the Korean cottonarmor suits, flags, lances, and rude breechloading cannon, of a model like those used by Columbus, were brought to Washington.

Seen in the perspective of Korean history, it seems now utterly improbable that any treaty could have been made at the time when the Tai Wen Kun ruled the country. Even so sound an authority as the late S. Wells Williams declared to the writer that Rodgers's chastisement of

L

CHAPTER VIII.

A FRIEND HELPS TO SPIN THE WEB.

AURA at last began to bear upon her face the imprints of what she had suffered. Enviable they were from more than one stand-point, for they were the first strong indications of character. One could say that she had grown five years older in three days, but even now she did not look her age, because the growth had been upon a former childishness which had not been consistent with her years. Her eyes had been beautiful only with the beauty of a fawn's eyes, which reflect nothing of the soul. Her face had been pretty only with the charm of an unwritten page. But now character was at work, tracing a faint line here and newshaping an infantile roundness there, to bring her nearer what she was a young woman of seventeen and slightly more. She was the better looking for this outcropping of what was in her, because her soul, which was disclosing itself, was better worthy of admiration than her vacant juvenility had been.

The very temper she was in, when she came out upon the road again, was strong enough to print faint outlines of its shadow on her face, and she had undergone many such trials within a few days. Now she walked boldly towards the town, past increasing numbers of people, whom she noted no more than if they had not been, though every villager turned to look again at her. Her expression was fixed, so that one saw a squareness about her chin which had not before been noticeable. Her eyes were no longer miniature sky-reflecting pools. They held a suggestion of wildness framed in a frown. She moved with some haste, but more of firmness, so that an impudent butcher-boy with his basket got out of her way as if she had been a man. "Oh," she muttered, like a latter-day Job, how much must I go through? How long can this keep on? What would I not give to know how to turnor what to do? If I could only get to New York and find those lawyers, how happy I should be!"

Another quarter of a mile she walked, and then she spoke again, almost aloud: "I shall beg. I never imagined I could think of it, but I shall ask some one for money, so as not to be so helpless-just for a day, to hold up my head and look around. Surely, surely, I was not born to undergo this. It does not seem that I can stand it."

She came to the hotel, but found herself unable to go in as she had promised. She passed on, and strode on into the open country, over which the shadows were slanting lengthily.

Tappin had been with the old Colonel for nearly an hour, endeavoring to convince him that the girlish wastrel who had drifted into the house could not by any possibility be his middle-aged sister, who went away older than this young lady twenty years before.

Then she died when she left here, and this was her ghost," said the obstinate invalid. "You knew my sister, Helen-Mrs. Balm, she became--and if you had seen her as I did in this room this afternoon, you would understand why I am not to be argued into doubting my plain eyesight. I won't have it, Tappin; by the Eternal, I won't be faced down about it. Put on your hat and overcoat and go and find her. She can't have gone far. Perhaps you had better take the wagSee her for yourself, and then come and tell me whether she's Helen's spirit or what."

"I'll find her, sir," said Tappin. “I am as curious as yourself, particularly, if you'll excuse me saying it, because you've not a particle of fever, and you seem quite yourself."

On the main street of Powellton he encountered old Christmas, who called from across the road, and hobbled over to him.

You may have to wait a bit for her at the hotel," said he. "She wasn't going in, but she'll have to come back to it. I have a sure feeling she will, at least by the time you've been there a few minutes."

Who are you talking about?" Tappin asked him.