Читать книгу The Battles of the World or, cyclopedia of battles, sieges, and important military events онлайн

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Large bodies of cavalry having shown themselves in our front, a reconnaissance was made on the 3rd August, covered, in the absence of cavalry, not yet landed, by infantry and by two French 8-pounder guns, the only artillery disembarked. We discovered that our polite enemy had left the causeway unoccupied, and that his force held no position nearer than 8 miles from the town we were in. The Chinese pickets opened fire upon our troops, but were speedily driven back. The reconnaissance effected, our force returned to Pehtang unmolested.

Meanwhile the Admirals had set to work, landing troops, horses, guns, materiel, and stores. The navy worked famously; and as everything had to be brought into the river either in, or in tow of, the gunboats, whose movements depended upon the tides, the work, under the active superintendence of Captain Borlase, C.B., continued without regard to any arbitrary distinction between day and night. During four or five of the ten days spent in this tedious operation, the rain fell in torrents; and as the interior of Pehtang is below high water-mark, the streets were knee-deep in mud, composed, in addition to the usual impurities pertaining to that substance, of flour, wardrobes, Tartar-hats, field rakes, coal, shutters, oil-cake, chaff, china-cups, matting, beer-bottles, tin cans, and kittens, being chiefly the contents of the dwellings of the townspeople, which were successively turned out of windows to make room for our troops. The cavalry and artillery horses were picketed in the streets, where alone space was available; and how they and we and everybody escaped death from typhus fever or plague, Heaven only knows. The sanitary officer was outraged by the result. During this time, water for the use of the troops was obtained in boats filled by the navy in the river above the influence of the tide, and towed to Pehtang, where the contents were landed in barrels for distribution.