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On the western side, and between 3000 and 4000 yards from Wylie, was placed the chief naval battery, the two 4.7-inch and four 12-pounders. Between these and the railroad was to advance the central column of attack, the 2nd Brigade under General Hildyard.
With its side ornaments of human-hair tassels, its dog teeth, or mother-of-pearl disks, and its red and yellow colors, it is often very gay. About one hundred and fifty men in Bontoc and Samoki own and sometimes wear at the girdle a large 7-inch disk of mother-of-pearl shell. It is called "fi-kum'," and its use is purely ornamental.
Yesterday I rode out to watch the evening bombardment which we make on their entrenchments with the naval 4.7-inch guns. From the low hill on which the battery is established the whole scene is laid bare. The Boer lines run in a great crescent along the hills.
Fort Jackson, on the south or left bank of the river, was a casemated pentagon of brick, mounting in the casemates fourteen 24-pounder guns, and ten 24-pounder howitzers, and in barbette in the upper tier two 10-inch columbiads, three 8-inch columbiads, one 7-inch rifle, six 42-pounders, fifteen 32-pounders, and eleven 24-pounders, in all sixty-two guns.
An attempt had been made, to be sure, to bring the 7-inch guns into action, but it proved of no avail. The gunners stood ready at their posts to discharge the shells at the enemy, but it was utterly impossible, for no sooner had they taken aim, than they lost it again as the hostile ships disappeared in the foaming glassy-green waves that broke against their sides.
The U. S. S. McCulloch, revenue cutter, 1,500 tons, speed, fourteen knots. Battery: four 4-inch guns. The Nanshan and Zafiro, supply ships. The Reina Maria Christina, 3,520 tons, speed, seventeen knots. Battery: six 6.2-inch hontoria guns, two 2.7-inch and three 2.2-inch rapid-fire rifles, six 1.4-inch, and two machine guns. The Castilla, 3,342 tons.
The situation on and around the island of Luzon was much the same as it had been nearly all the month of June, except that the gunboat Leite, which ran up a river on May 1st, the day of the battle, came out and surrendered, having on board fifty-two army and navy officers and ninety-four men. The Leite has a battery of one 3 1-2-inch hontoria guns, and several 2.7-inch rapid-fire guns. July 1.
On the former was a detachment of the Naval Brigade with a 12-pounder gun and some Natal Naval Volunteers, as well as the 1st Battalion Manchesters and 42 Battery, RA; and on Wagon Hill, in addition to its usual garrison, a 12-pounder gun and a 4.7-inch had arrived the day before.
Battery: four 4.7-inch hontorias, three 3.2-inch rapid-fire, two 1.5-inch, and two machine guns. The General Lezo, and El Correo, gun vessels, 524 tons, speed, 11.5 knots. The General Lezo had two hontoria rifles of 4.7-inch calibre, one 3.5-inch, two small rapid-fire, and one machine gun; the El Correo had three 4.7-inch guns, two small rapid-fire, and two machine guns.
Two one-hundred-ton Armstrongs, each having an effectual range of 12 miles, and two Krupp 15.7-inch guns, which throw shot weighing nearly 2000 pounds over ten miles. Krupp claims a range of 15 miles; but this is doubtful. She also was encased in 21-1/2 inches of compound steel and iron armor, capable of resisting the projectiles of any cannon known except, perhaps, those of her own Armstrongs.
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