ed some loss in effecting its
retreat. Of the first results of General Staveley's campaign there
thus remained very little, and it was only in the autumn that these
places were retaken, and the campaign against the Taepings in the
Shanghai districts continued with varying fortune throughout the
remainder of the year 1862 and the early months of 1863.

While these military events were in progress Major Gordon, who was
raised to the rank of Major in the army in December 1862 for his
services in China, had been trusted with the congenial task, and one
for which he was pre-eminently well suited, of surveying and mapping
the whole of the region for thirty miles. This work, necessary in
itself for many reasons, proved of incalculable value to him in the
operations which he eventually undertook and carried out to a
successful issue against the rebels. His own letters show how
thoroughly he fulfilled his instructions, and how his surveys ended in
his complete mastery of the topography of the region between the Grand
Canal, the sea, and the Yangtsekiang:--

"I have been now in every town and village in the thirty miles'
radius. The country is the same everywhere--a dead flat, with
innumerable creeks and bad pathways. The people have now settled
down quiet again, and I do not anticipate the rebels will ever
come back. They are rapidly on the decline, and two years ought
to bring about the utter suppression of the revolt. I do not
write about what we saw, as it amounts to nothing. There is
nothing of any interest in China; if you have seen one village
you have seen all the country. I have really an immensity to do.
It will be a good thing if the Government support the
propositions which are made to the Chinese.

"The weather here is delightful--a fine cold, clear air which is
quite invigorating after the summer heats. There is very good
pheasant-shooting in the half-populated districts, and some quail
at uncertain times. It is extraordinary to see the quantities of
fishing cormorants there are in the creeks. These cormorants are
in flocks of forty and fifty, and the owner in a small canoe
travels about with them. They fish three or four times a day, and
are encouraged by the shouts of their owners to dive. I have
scarcely ever seen them come up without a fish in their beaks,
which they swallow, but not for any distance, for