and divided into five ying or divisions, the front, rear, left, right and centre.

"A ying or division is composed of 2,625 men and officers commanded by a Sze shwae or General of Division, and is divided into five leu or regiments, the front, rear, left, right and centre.

"A leu or regiment is composed of 525 men and officers commanded by a Leu shwae or Colonel, and is divided into five tsuh or companies, the first, second, third, fourth and fifth.

"A tsuh or company is composed of 104 men and officers, commanded by a Tsuh chang or Captain. He has under him four Leang sze ma or Lieutenants, distinguished as the East, South, West and North, each in command of four Woo chang or Sergeants and 20 Woo tsuh or privates.

"The relative standing of the Sergeants and privates is not marked by such terms as first, second &c. front, rear &c. or east, south &c.; but the Sergeants, by characters signifying Powerful, Daring, Martial, &c. and the privates by characters signifying Vanguard-repelling, Enemy-breaking &c. These words, as well as the section, company, regiment and division, are all marked on a square cloth on the breast, larger for the sergeants than for the privates. The Leang sze ma or Lieutenants, and all above, have no such cloths; but each has a banner with his designation inscribed on it, and the size of which increases with the rank of the officer. On these banners are also inscribed the names of places, chiefly of departments and districts in Kwang tung and Kwang se, which seem to be used analogously to the names of places attached to some of our regiments."

About the time the preceding organization was adopted, Hung sew tseuen had assumed the title of Heavenly or Divine Prince; and on the 30th November, 1851, definitively assigned to five of the chief leaders, subordinate princely titles, viz. to Yang sew tsing, that of Eastern Prince; to Seaou chaou hwuy that of Western Prince; to Fung yun san, that

of Southern Prince; to Wei ching, that of Northern Prince; and to Shih ta kae, that of Assistant Prince.

"Between the Generals of Keun or Armies and the Princes, are nine descriptions of officers distinguished by different titles; who are equivalent to our Ministers, Commanders in chief and other high officers in charge of the civil, judicial, and military departments of state. The above military organization, and all the titles, are those used in olden times in China.

"The Princes wear yellow hoods, shaped like the Chinese helmet, yellow jackets and long yellow gowns. The officers next in rank, red hoods with a broad yellow border, yellow jackets and long red gowns. The third in rank have only the hood and jacket, and those lower still only the jacket.

"There was little uniformity of dress among the privates, even in the cloth round the head; and there was nothing equivalent to our systematic forming, wheeling and marching in regular bodies; but the strictest discipline is maintained in so far as prompt obedience to orders and signals is concerned. Of guns (cannon) there was abundance, of matchlocks and muskets but few, the arms being chiefly spears, halberds and swords. A few bows were noticed."

The Tae ping publications, especially that entitled "Tae ping Army Organization," showed that at the time of the taking of Nanking there existed at least five such armies of 13,135 men each; and from what I saw and heard there of their numbers, I was led to conclude, that they invested that city with some 60 to 80 thousand men. This was the result of accessions of strength to their original 10 or 15 thousand, received in the course of their twelve months' progress from Yung gan in Kwang se northward to Nanking.

After they had occupied Yung gan for some seven months. they left it on the 7th April, 1852, and marched to Kwei lin the capital of the province, which they besieged without success for about a month.

On the 19th May they raised the siege of Kwei lin,

crossed the great southern watershed into the province of Hoonan, and took the Taou district city on the 12th June. A month later, about the 12th and 15th of August, they took the district city of Kea ho, the departmental city of Kwei yang and the district city of Chin. In this position they remained some three weeks, when they left and marched straight on Chang sha, the capital of the province of Hoonan; before which they appeared on or before the 11th September. They besieged it for 80 days, during which they stormed several times without success, but with great loss to the Imperialist garrison and to the Imperialist armies of observation in the vicinity. One of the contemporary Peking Gazettes gave a nominal return of 44 Imperialist officers, from ensigns upwards, inclusive of a major and a lieutenantgeneral, all killed in one action.

On the 30th November the Tae ping forces raised the siege of Chang sha and moved northward. But Chang sha being situated on the Seang, a large navigable feeder of the Tung ting Lake, they here began that progress in river craft which offered specially great advantages to an army, some of whose best leaders and troops had been sea rovers; and which formed one of the chief features of their further advance. On the 13th December they had crossed the Tung ting Lake and entered the main stream of the Great River at Yo chang; which city was evacuated by the Imperialists on their approach.

They advanced on, and took the departmental city of Han yang, and occupied the contiguous great commercial town of Han kow on the 23rd December. They then immediately crossed the river and invested Woo chang, the capital of Hoo pih; which they took by storm on the 12th January. At these three cities, which, at a low estimate must have contained a population of three to four millions, the Tae pings remained exactly one month, during which they were occupied in transferring provisions and treasure to their vessels; of which latter they had by this time seized a

sufficient number to transport their now large army with all its stores.

Their progress from thence to Nanking—a distance, measured by the sinuosities of the river, of some four to five hundred miles-was leisurely and almost uninterrupted. On the 18th February they took Kew keang, an important city, situated near the point where the Great River touches the Po yang lake, and on the 24th Gan king, the capital of the province of Gan hwuy. From these cities, and many other places to the distance of one or two days' journey from the Great River on both sides, they collected money and provisions, either directly taken, or paid as ransom.

"On the 8th March they appeared before Nanking,* and, on the 19th of that month, sprung a mine under the wall near the northern angle, which effected a breach of about 20 or 30 yards in extent. They immediately stormed by this, meeting with only a slight resistance from some Shan tung and Kwei chow (Chinese) troops who attempted to defend it, and proceeding to the southern quarter, entered the inner city there situated; which in the time of the Mings was, and now is again, called the Imperial city, but which under the Manchoo dynasty has been occupied by the hereditary garrison of Tartar Bannermen and their families. The following was the strength of this force as given in the Imperial Army Regulations:-

I here again quote from one of five successive contributions by myself to the "North China Herald," written in May, 1853, immediately after my return from Nanking in H.M. war steamer Hermes.

"This was the paid force, but owing to the gradual increase of the families originally settled there, it is well known that the number of able-bodied men could not have been less than seven or eight thousand, and the total number of all ages and both sexes from twenty to thirty thousand. Twenty thousand was the number given by most of the insurgents; but it is thought to be a rather low estimate. These Manchoos had to fight for all that is dear to man, for the Imperial family which had always treated them well, for the honor of their nation, for their own lives and for the lives of their wives and children. This they well knew, the Heavenly Prince having openly declared the first duty of his mission to be their extermination. It might have been expected therefore that they would have made a desperate fight in self-defence. Yet they did not strike a blow. It would seem as if the irresistible progress and inveterate enmity of the insurgents had bereft them of all sense and strength, and of all manhood; for they merely threw themselves on the ground before the Leaders and piteously implored for mercy with cries of Spare my life, Prince!— Spare my life, Prince!' They may have been paralysed by the thought that their impending fate was the retribution of Heaven for the indiscriminate slaughter of whole populations by their ancestors when they conquered the country; as at Canton, for instance, where the Chinese still speak revengefully of the extermination of the inhabitants on the forces of the present dynasty taking that city. Some such explanation the Insurgents gave when it was represented* to many, who

* It was myself who represented this to them. At the very time that Nanking was taken, my enquiries at Shanghae had convinced me that the Manchoo garrison had become most unwarlike; and that they would not prevent that city from falling into the hands of the advancing rebels. Accordingly in an official report, afterwards printed with Parliamentary Papers, I felt justified in stating: "All accounts describe the Manchoo bannermen as being, though very numerous, thoroughly unwarlike, and quite unable to resist the first general storm of the Insurgents." Nevertheless, I could not readily credit such irrationally abject conduct as that ascribed to them by the Insurgents, and hence subjected some of these latter to a good deal of croɛs