Large
Bodies Of Infantry And Gingall-Men Were Seen Marching From All Quarters To
The Town.
At Chan-chia-wan itself still more emphatic tokens were visible
of a coming battle.
Cavalry were drawn up in dense bodies, but under
shelter. In a nullah one regiment of a thousand sabers was stationed with
the men standing at their horses' heads ready for instant action. At
another point a number of men were busily engaged in constructing a
battery and in placing twelve guns in position. When the Englishmen gained
the plain they found the proposed site of the English camp in the actual
possession of a Chinese army, and a strong force of Tartar cavalry, alone
reckoned to number six or seven thousand men, scouring the plain. To all
inquiries as to what these warlike arrangements betokened no reply was
made by the soldiers, and when the whereabout of the responsible general
was asked there came the stereotyped answer that "he was many li away." To
the most obtuse mind these arrangements could convey but one meaning. They
indicated that the Chinese government had resolved to make another
endeavor to avert the concessions demanded from them by the English and
their allies, and to appeal once more to the God of Battles ere they
accepted the inevitable. When the whole truth flashed across the mind of
Mr. Parkes, the army of Sir Hope Grant might be, and indeed was, marching
into the trap prepared for it, with such military precautions perhaps as a
wise general never neglected, but still wholly unprepared for the
extensive and well-arranged opposition planned for its reception by a
numerous army established in a strong position of its own choosing.
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of 191255
