force can mount to. To be the toy of it is enough to fill
the stoutest heart with awe. The harbour was full of

transports, merchant ships, opium clippers, besides four or
five men-of-war, and a steamer belonging to the East India

Company - the first steamship I had ever seen.
The coming of a typhoon is well known to the natives at least

twenty-four hours beforehand, and every preparation is made
for it. Boats are dragged far up the beach; buildings even

are fortified for resistance. Every ship had laid out its
anchors, lowered its yards, and housed its topmasts. We had

both bowers down, with cables paid out to extreme length.
The danger was either in drifting on shore or, what was more

imminent, collision. When once the tornado struck us there
was nothing more to be done; no men could have worked on

deck. The seas broke by tons over all; boats beached as
described were lifted from the ground, and hurled, in some

instances, over the houses. The air was darkened by the
spray.

But terrible as was the raging of wind and water, far more
awful was the vain struggle for life of the human beings who

succumbed to it. In a short time almost all the ships except
the men-of-war, which were better provided with anchors,

began to drift from their moorings. Then wreck followed
wreck. I do not think the 'Blonde' moved; but from first to

last we were threatened with the additional weight and strain
of a drifting vessel. Had we been so hampered our anchorage

must have given way. As a single example of the force of a
typhoon, the 'Phlegethon' with three anchors down, and

engines working at full speed, was blown past us out of the
harbour.

One tragicincident I witnessed, which happened within a few
fathoms of the 'Blonde.' An opium clipper had drifted

athwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn was
almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper

sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so
close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under

the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his
face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and

activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of
the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the

vessel reared between the seas he gained a few feet before he
was again submerged. At last he reached the hawse-hole. Had

he hoped, in spite of his knowledge, to find it large enough
to admit his body? He must have known the truth; and yet he

struggled on. Did he hope that, when thus within arms'
length of men in safety, some pitying hand would be stretched

out to rescue him, - a rope's end perhaps flung out to haul
him inboard? Vain desperate hope! He looked upwards: an

imploring look. Would Heaven be more compassionate than man?
A mountain of sea towered above his head; and when again the

bow was visible, the man was gone for ever.
Before taking leave of my seafaring days, I must say one word

about corporalpunishment. Sir Thomas Bouchier was a good
sailor, a gallant officer, and a kind-hearted man; but he was

one of the old school. Discipline was his watchword, and he
endeavoured to maintain it by severity. I dare say that, on

an average, there was a man flogged as often as once a month
during the first two years the 'Blonde' was in commission. A

flogging on board a man-of-war with a 'cat,' the nine tails
of which were knotted, and the lashes of which were slowly

delivered, up to the four dozen, at the full swing of the
arm, and at the extremity of lash and handle, was very severe

punishment. Each knot brought blood, and the shock of the
blow knocked the breath out of a man with an involuntary

'Ugh!' however stoically he bore the pain.
I have seen many a bad man flogged for unpardonable conduct,

and many a good man for a glass of grog too much. My firm
conviction is that the bad man was very little the better;

the good man very much the worse. The good man felt the
disgrace, and was branded for life. His self-esteem was

permanently maimed, and he rarely held up his head or did his
best again. Besides which, - and this is true of all

punishment - any sense of injustice destroys respect for the
punisher. Still I am no sentimentalist; I have a contempt

for, and even a dread of, sentimentalism. For boy
housebreakers, and for ruffians who commitcriminal assaults,

the rod or the lash is the only treatment.
A comic piece of insubordination on my part recurs to me in

connection with flogging. About the year 1840 or 1841, a
midshipman on the Pacific station was flogged. I think the

ship was the 'Peak.' The event created some sensation, and
was brought before Parliament. Two frigates were sent out to

furnish a quorum of post-captains to try the responsible
commander. The verdict of the court-martial was a severe

reprimand. This was, of course, nuts to every midshipman in
the service.

Shortly after it became known I got into a scrape for
laughing at, and disobeying the orders of, our first-

lieutenant, - the head of the executive on board a frigate.
As a matter of fact, the orders were ridiculous, for the said

officer was tipsy. Nevertheless, I was reported, and had up
before the captain. 'Old Tommy' was, or affected to be, very

angry. I am afraid I was very 'cheeky.' Whereupon Sir
Thomas did lose his temper, and threatened to send for the

boatswain to tie me up and give me a dozen, - not on the
back, but where the back leaves off. Undismayed by the

threat, and mindful of the episode of the 'Peak' (?) I looked
the old gentleman in the face, and shrilly piped out, 'It's

as much as your commission is worth, sir.' In spite of his
previous wrath, he was so taken aback by my impudence that he

burst out laughing, and, to hide it, kicked me out of the
cabin.

After another severe attack of fever, and during a long
convalescence, I was laid up at Macao, where I enjoyed the

hospitality of Messrs. Dent and of Messrs. Jardine and
Matheson. Thence I was invalided home, and took my passage

to Bombay in one of the big East India tea-ships. As I was
being carried up the side in the arms of one of the boatmen,

I overheard another exclaim: 'Poor little beggar. He'll
never see land again!'

The only other passenger was Colonel Frederick Cotton, of the
Madras Engineers, one of a distinguished family. He, too,

had been through the China campaign, and had also broken
down. We touched at Manila, Batavia, Singapore, and several

other ports in the Malay Archipelago, to take in cargo.
While that was going on, Cotton, the captain, and I made

excursions inland. Altogether I had a most pleasant time of
it till we reached Bombay.

My health was now re-established; and after a couple of weeks
at Bombay, where I lived in a merchant's house, Cotton took

me to Poonah and Ahmadnagar; in both of which places I stayed
with his friends, and messed with the regiments. Here a copy

of the 'Times' was put into my hands; and I saw a notice of
the death of my father.

After a fortnight's quarantine at La Valetta, where two young
Englishmen - one an Oxford man - shared the same rooms in the

fort with me, we three returned to England; and (I suppose
few living people can say the same) travelled from Naples to

Calais before there was a single railway on the Continent.
At the end of two months' leave in England I was appointed to

the 'Caledonia,' flagship at Plymouth. Sir Thomas Bouchier
had written to the Admiral, Sir Edward Codrington, of

Navarino fame (whose daughter Sir Thomas afterwards married),