When T left the ship in 1898 she was pald off at Hongkong and was! subsequently sold to a Chinese stib ping frm, for I think, service in the Canton delta, The foregoing is a brief account of life on board a small gunboat on the China Station some 40 years ago, and may be of interest to the old hands wko knew this particular ship. will also serve as a comparison with the smaller type of men-of-war ser Ing "here to-day. Although thes> modern vessels do much the same work, they differ in almost every respect from the ships of the early' days. Practically ihe only thing thas has not changed is the spirit and eMicieney of the officers and men. EMclent in different ways, however, for the crew of the Firebrand were of the old school, most of whom had bees trained in sail, with little knowledge of anything else beyond the simple gunnery of the time, whilst the com piements of these modern vessels are' highly: skirled in all that pertains the complicated mechanism of the modern man-of-war,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.