Insuch letters as come to hand from the North just now the Taku Forts a continues as the most interesting topic. New facts and new statements are enntinually coming out, and for this reason the letter from which the following quotations are made is interesting. First as to the appearance of the Forts. The writer says: The Taku Forts lovked—and are—very strong, and you cannot get near enough to shell them with big ships. They are on both sides of the river, and the ground, which is made by the i very swampy and cut up. The first "thie inside the river is the Taku Tag Company's works.
'The dock is a mud one, and instead of a caisson, Has a mud wall, which is dug away by' coolies and replaced by the same means. Higher up on the right bank is Chiku, a fishing village. and still higher up the river the Imperia Chinese Dockyard, with four Chinese destroyers lying there, very clean outwardly and wit their boilers full of mud. Yet higher, on the left bunk, is Tangka, where there are many wharves, Custom House, and railway to Tientsin,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.