sputtering of fire-crackers, burnt to secure the aid of the watergods, reaches us at this distance. Eight or nine miles up the river stands a tall pagoda, and as the air is clear to-day, the summits of "The Hills," as they are called by the foreign residents, are faintly visible in the west. These hills, which are a favourite resort of foreigners during the hot season, are twenty-five miles distant. They are the first range which breaks the vast level of the plains, and command a view of the large town of SoongKeang in the interior, and the country stretching towards SooChow.

Looking to the river, our eyes are attracted by a large tea-warehouse, on the wall of which are painted four enormous characters. Our friend interprets them as signifying "The place of Heavenlyprepared Leaves." In the fanciful and figurative character of their signs, the Chinese remind us of the Arabic races. There is a shop for the sale of samshoo, or rice-whiskey, in Hong-Kong, which bears over its door the following inscription: "The joys of Paradise are nothing but a state of perpetual intoxication!" The announcements of vessels bound for California are headed with the enticing call "To the Golden Mountains!"

:

Notwithstanding the efforts of many zealous and devoted missionaries who have been sent to China, the number of genuine converts is very limited. The Chinese nature appears to be so thoroughly passive, that it is not even receptive. A sort of listless curiosity leads them to fill the chapels of the missionaries, and to gather in crowds around those who preach in the public places, but when the exhortation is finished, away they go, without the least ripple of new thought in the stagnant water of their minds. The mental inertia of these people seems to be almost hopeless of improvement. Even while the present rebellion is going on a struggle which, one would suppose, would enlist their sympathies, if a single spark of patriotism or ambition remainedthe great mass of the people maintain the most profound apathy. Some advocate of universal peace has cited China as the example of a nation which has successfully pursued a pacific policy; but I say, welcome be the thunder-storm which shall scatter and break up, though by the means of fire and blood, this terrible stagnation! Who would not exclaim with Tennyson:

"Better fifty years in Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

But we are curious to inspect the dwelling of a Chinaman of the better class, and our friend, who is fortunately able to assist us, conducts us to the house of a wealthy old merchant. It is a stone building, recently erected, and everything about it indicates great neatness, and an approach to taste in the owner. In the open verandahs are boxes of the mau-tan, or rose-scented peony, with gorgeous white and crimson blossoms, and the lan-whei, a water

plant of an orchideous nature, with a long spike of yellovish-green flowers. The mau-tan also decorates the rooms, which are hung with lanterns of stained glass. The furniture is of wood, of a stiff, uncomfortable pattern, but elaborately carved. The owner, an urbane, polite old gentleman, regales us with cups of stewed tea, whose delicate aroma compensates for the absence of milk and sugar, and asks us upstairs into his library. The shelves are covered with Chinese works, bound in their wooden covers, and in the centre of the room stands a bronze frame, with three apertures at the top, and a bundle of arrows. The latter are the implements of a game which the host explains to us, by taking the arrows to the further end of the room, seizing one by the tip of the shaft with his thumb and fore-finger, and throwing it so as to fall into one of the small circular openings of the frame. We try a game, whereof the victory, owing to his more extensive practice, remains with him.

Toward the northern side of the city is the prison. On each side of the outer gate is painted the figure of an avenging divinity, whose black face and glaring eye-balls strike terror into the minds of the natives. This gate gives admittance to a quadrangular court, surrounded by ranges of cages or cells, wherein the prisoners are subjected to different degrees of punishment, according to their crimes. Some are in chambers divided by strong bamboo gratings; others at large, with heavy shackles fastened to their legs; and the more criminal cases are confined separately in narrow cages, which bind them in the smallest and most cramped space, with their knees drawn up to their chins. Their heads project through holes in the top, and as we pass, their faces are turned to us with a wild, haggard look of suffering. Some of them have been kept for weeks, immovable in those frames of torture, and their condition is too horrible for description. The cell adjoining that in which they lie, and divided from it only by some bamboo stakes, is the one appropriated by the Chinese authorities for foreign prisoners. On the beams are carved a number of names, principally German, and probably those of refractory sailors. The English Government, in those ports where the Consul possesses, judicial authority—as in China, Turkey, and the Barbary States-always erects a separate prison for the confinement of English subjects. The United States Government, however, from an admirable economy, prefers thrusting its citizens into these loathsome dens, the condition and associations of which increase tenfold the horrors of imprisonement. A few days ago the entire crew of an Amerian vessel in port passed a night in the very cell before us.

On our way to the city wall we pass one of the public baths, and curiosity induces us to step in. The building is low, damp, and dirty, and filled with a rank, steamy, unclean atmosphere. It consists of three apartments, in one of which the bathers undress,

bathe in the next, and lounge smoking on the benches, in an unembarrassed state of nudity, in the third. As it is towards evening, they belong mostly to the lower classes, and look quite as filthy after the bath as before. The water is not changed throughout the day, and its appearance and condition may perhaps be imagined. The small tank is filled in the morning, and kept heated by a furnace under it. The price of a bath diminishes in proportion as the water gets dirty, until, in the evening, it falls to a single cash. By holding my breath, I remain in the dark, reeking den long enough to see two yellow forms immersed in the turbid pool, and then rush out stifled and nauseated. Among the bathers in the outer room there are several strong, muscular figures, but a total want of that elegant symmetry which distinguishes the Caucasian and Shemitic races. They are broad-shouldered and deep-chested, but the hips and loins are clumsily moulded, and the legs have a coarse, clubby character. We should never expect to see such figures assume the fine, free attitudes of ancient sculpture. But here as every where, the body is the expression of the spiritual nature. There is no sense of what we understand by Art-Grace, Harmony, Proportion-in the Chinese nature, and therefore we look in vain for any physical expression of it. De Quincey, who probably never saw a Chinaman, saw this fact with the clairvoyant eye of genius, when he said: "If I were condemned to live among the Chinese, I should go mad." This is a strong expression, but I do not hesitate to adopt it.

Before terminating this long and, perhaps, wearisome ramble, let us enter the great temple of the tutelar divinity of Shanghai. The obese idol, cross-legged, and with his hands upon his knees, is fifteen feet high, and seated upon a pedestal of about twelve feet. He is gilded from head to foot, and looms grandly through the dusk of the lofty hall. On each side are the gilded statues of nine renowned Chinese saints and sages-eighteen in all-of the size of life. The sacred drum, four or five feet in diameter, and raised on a prop of heavy timbers, stands on one side of the entrance, and the great bell-a universal feature of Bhudhist temples-on the other. We beat the drum and strike the bell with a mallet, until the temple rings with a peal of barbaric sound. The priests look. on, smiling, for the act is not one of irreverence, but of devotion, in their eyes, and while we are amusing ourselves, we do homage to the great Bhudha. The broad interior of the temple is dusky with the evening shadows, when the last red beam of sunset, falling through an upper window, strikes full upon the golden face of the god, lighting that only, so that the large features blaze upon us out of the gloom, as if moulded in living fire. It is as if Bhudha had asserted his insulted majesty, and while he is thus transfigured we own that he is sublime.

On our return to the foreign settlement, we heard loud, humming

noises in the air, and looking up, see a strange collection of monsters hovering in the sky. An enormous bird, with outspread wings of red and gold, is soaring directly over our heads; a centipede, twenty feet long, is wriggling yonder; a fanciful dragon shoots hither and thither; and a mandarin, in his robes of state, makes his airy ko-tows, or salutations, to the gazers below. The natives are indulging in their national amusement of kite-flying, and as long as there is light enough they will continue, with the eagerness of children, to manœuvre their painted toys. We draw a long breath of relief when we have passed the wall and the muddy creek, and as we walk homeward, mentally revolve the question, whether it is worth satisfying one's curiosity at the expense of so much annoyance and disgust.

CHAPTER XV.

LIFE IN SHANGHAI.

SPRING, at Shanghai, comes slowly. When we arrived, at the close of March, the trees were budding into leaf, but did not attain their full foliage before the middle of May. The weather during April was dull and showery, with a lower temperature than would be looked for elsewhere in the same latitude. There was scarcely an evening when fire was not necessary to our comfort. Until all the summer crops had been planted, and for a week or two afterwards, there was little satisfaction in going into the country, where the vernal odours of grass and flowers were wholly lost in the intolerable stench arising from pits of manure. towards the end of April, when the rumours of war became less frequent, when the shocks of earthquakes had subsided, and the sun made his appearance from time to time, I took many after noon strolls in various directions, and became familiar with the country life of the Chinese.

But

There is nothing striking or picturesque in the scenery of this part of China. The country is a dead level, watered with sluggish creeks, and intersected with ditches and canals. It is studded far and near with shapeless mounds of earth erected over obsolete natives; sparingly dotted with clumps of dark cedar-trees or plantations of the inestimable bamboo, and enlivened by occasional hamlets, which, shaded with bushy willows, have a pleasant, rural aspect when seen from a distance, but are mostly disgusting when you draw near. The soil is a very rich clayey loam, and yields

abundant crops of rice, wheat, sweet potatoes, beets, beans, peanuts, and the other staples of Chinese food. Much of it must have been originally marsh land, which has been drained by canals and the gradual rise of the coast, from the deposits of the Yangtse-Kiang. The paths from village to village are on narrow dykes, winding between the fields, and crossing the ditches by bridges formed of single large slabs of granite, which are brought down from the hills. Occasionally you see a highway, six or eight feet broad, paved with blocks of stone laid transversely, but I doubt whether a carriage could go in any direction further than two or three miles from the city. I sometimes met a Chinaman of the better class mounted on a sturdy little pony, and once encountered a traveller from Soo-Chow in the national conveyance of Chinathe wheelbarrow! He was seated side-ways, with his legs dangling below, while his baggage, placed on the opposite side, served to trim the vehicle. It was a one-horse wheel-barrow, propelled by a stout coolie, with a strap over his shoulders, and made a doleful creaking as it passed. The persons whom I met showed every sign of civility and, respect, and, had time permitted, I might have extended my strolls to a distance of forty miles, without meeting any hindrance. In the villages I frequently entered the houses of the people, to which they made no objection, but seemed rather gratified at the distinction. The domestic arrangements were very simple; the dwellings were all of one storey, rarely having more than two rooms, and containing only the rudest appliances of a household. The beds were usually of matting, with bamboo pillows, but the poorer natives slept upon coarse mats laid upon the earth, with wooden stools under their heads. It is not advisable to be too curious, or to spend much time in inspecting Chinese dwellings, on account of their abundant vitality. For the same reason, many feature of domestic life among the lower classes must be passed over in silence.

We made an excursion one morning to the pagoda which stands on the left bank of the Whang-po River, about eight miles above the city. The wind was fair, and Mr. Cunningham's fleet clipperyacht soon carried us past the thousand junks and notched brick walls of Shanghai. It was in the beginning of May, and the shores, low and greenly wooded, bore some resemblance to those of the Delaware, below Philadelphia. We passed several large junks, which had come throug. from the Bay of Hang-Chow, by a canal which leads from the oid city of Chapoo to the Whang-po River. After a run of an hour-and-a-half, we moored the yacht at the mouth of a small creek, and walked to the pagoda, which was a quarter-of-a-mile distant. It is built of pale red sandstone, and with its ten storeys diminishing in beautiful proportion, each overhung by a pointed, up-turned roof, it is truly a graceful object. The pagodas are the only symmetrical things in Chinese architec