July 13.
Warrare is, an uncertain enough matter at any time, but it becomes doubly so to the onlooker when carried on without the issuance of reliable comte muniqués. This, we fear, is the position so far as the struggle between Kuangtung and Kuangsi is concerned, and it is particularly tantalizing at the present moment when events appear to have taken a particularly interesting and exciting tun. When the capture, of Wuchow. by the Cantonese was announced, we were able to state that the Kuangsi command regarded this event as of secondary importance. The invasion of the province by way of the West River was to be allowed tq proceed in the meantime, while by a bold stroke the Kuangsi troops were to reach the sea. According to the last telegrams received they have accomplished this object, have succeeded thus in opening communications with Peking, and at the same time, if the news from Pakhoi is correct, have inflicted a severe defeat on the Cantonese troops. The boundary betwee the two provinces in the district nearest the sea is not at all strategically good from the point of view of the Cantonese, A limb of Kuangtung stretches along the coast away to the west, and just before reaching Pakhoi there is a neck of land between the Kuangsi frontier, and the coast measuring at its narrowest hardly more than twenty-five miles. It is along this strip of land that the Kuangsi troops have been operating and where, according to the news from Pakhoi, they, have achieved a substantial victory. The seaports of Yamchow and Limchow are reported to have fallen, and ten thousand Cantonese have surrendered, deserted or been dispersed.
In a statement just received from Canton, bearing evidences jof official inspiration, we are given the strength and dispositions of the Cantonese army at the time of the capture of Wuchow, and from this we are able to gauge the seriousness of the defeat just sustained by Canton. Twenty thousand men were allotted to the North River sector, presumably. to operate against a possible invasion of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.