The experience has been interesting. My soldier-servant was able to make very good forecasts as to the probabilities of the movements of the various forces. They were not the forecasts I should have made; but they were correct. He was particularly correct as to the probabilities of distant firing. At a quarter of a mile, they could hit a launch, or send a bullet into the midst of a fairly large party. But the hitting of any picked man, or spot in the steamer was beyond them. While it seems preposterous to us, that thousands of soldiers should have been occupying the bank opposite to Changsha for 10 days without an attempt to cross the river, it does not seem so to him. The power of attack is such that 40 men could. inflict -very serious damage on.a force attempting to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.
