498
Reminiscences of Chusan.
SEP.
encamped. On that melancholy spot were the remains of several hundreds faid, to moulder until the last great day.
The hospitals of the 49th Irish were in several houses in the city, and the loss of life was proportionately as great as in the other regi. ments. The poor fellows sunk under exhaustion, without even a groan. The fever had a most disastrous effect in dampening the spirits, and in taking away even the love of life. It would shake the sufferer for six or eight hours, and leave him in a state of dreadful inertia. When the disease did not yield to remedies, the patient was soon a dead man, and he died as if he had fallen asleep from weari- ness. But a far more virulent enemy was the dysentery, which with malignant intent seldom gave up its victim. It raged with fearful fury. The Bengal Volunteers suffered dreadfully from this scourge. Their hospital being in the Pantheon, one of the lowest parts of the city, it gave the death stroke to numbers of the strongest men.
When the wretchedness was at its height, captain Elliot exerted himself with laudable zeaf, to alleviate the sufferings which he could not remove. He went into the hospitals, visited the sick, and pro- cured them all kinds of refreshment, without the slightest reference to expense. The admiral subsequently did the same, and the most hu- mane attentions and rich supplies were provided. But the epidemic had already singled out its victims, and the provisions came now too late!
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Of the officers few suffered from the scourge, and there were only one or two instances, of any of them dying in consequence of the climate. They had generally healthy nourishment and exposed them- selves less to the enervating heat of the sun. Nobody however stood it better than the sappers, and miners, who had to do the hardest work, and were most exposed, yet scarcely lost a single man. The 18th too suffered comparatively less, being from the first quartered near the beach in the suburbs. In the fleet the cases of sickness were few, and though, there were many patients among the soldiers when the vessels were at the mouth of the Pei ho, yet they recovered rapid- ly on their return to Chusan.
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In the meanwhile little progress was made with the internal go- vernment of our island. An attempt to create constables throughout the city proved abortive, the candidates for these high honors proving themselves to be great rogues, and utterly unconscious of the com- pliment paid them in being called to serve her gracious majesty, queen Victoria. In several of the valleys also some respectable na- tives were nominated to fill the same office; they quietly received