barbarians, who did not understand the rites and ceremonies of the flowery empire, and they remained where they were. At night they were woke up by a loud discussion carried on in a room adjacent to them, and they overheard a military mandarin, who boasted of having fought against the English, recommending that they should be loaded with chains and thus conducted to Canton! This was too much for our excitable missionaries; hastily putting on their robes, they bounced into the room, and, in their own words, "precipitated themselves upon the fiery warrior, crying out, Where are the chains? bring the chains! put on the chains!" till they drove the disconcerted mandarin into a corner. This plan of travelling in China certainly appears to have presented the advantage of plenty of excitement. The next day the prefect apologised, but they insisted, in revenge for the ill-treatment which they conceived themselves to have been subjected to, upon resting themselves for another day in the palace of the prefect. Others under their circumstances would have felt but too glad to get out of a town where the feeling entertained towards their illustrious persons was of so dubious a character. But it seems surprising what two bold, resolute men-two of the real church-militant-can do in China. "We left I-tchang-fou," they place on record, "free men, with neither shackles nor irons on our feet; not only had they not chained us, but we felt convinced that they would not dare to speak again of such a thing, in any court of justice, for fear that the prisoners should suddenly metamorphose themselves into gaolers!"

The next station on the Blue River was I-tou-hien, and here a change came over the scene. The prefect was a young doctor, versed in science and literature, wearing gold spectacles, and of most polished manners. This charming mandarin received the travellers in an equally charming palace, and treated them to an exquisite repast, in which superb peaches and sparkling cherries figured largely. We do not find any remarks here upon what missionaries have to undergo for the cause which they have espoused.

This pleasant state of things was repeated at Song-tche-hien, their next station, where they were received with a little triumphal arch, decorated with banners, flowers, and coloured lanterns, and with the firing of crackers. The prefect received them with open arms, and the people were allowed to contemplate at their ease the western devils. A sign was sufficient to keep them in order; the governor was like the father of a family among his children, and realised the perfection of Chinese institutions a truly paternal government. This, as usual, leads M. Huc into a long disquisition in connexion with the last idea started, and he finishes his political discussion upon this occasion by informing us that this magnificent system of administration, so much bepraised by Voltaire as not founded upon the Bible, is now but an empty theory, and that, with some rare exceptions, the mandarins are nothing but a formidable and imposing association of petty tyrants and great thieves.

The Blue River was now some three miles in width: it came on to blow on the next day's journey, and they parted company with a barque which the good prefect had loaded with provisions for them. On this occasion the missionary element resumed its pre-eminence over the bellicose. "Heaven," they said, "permitted this misfortune in order to give us a lesson. May His holy name be blessed in dearth as in abundance!" The

wind continued to blow so, that the mandarins grew sick, and seeing that the missionaries were not similarly incommoded, they inquired the cause, as the boat rocked the same for them as it did for others. "Oh!" they answered, “we do not smoke opium."—" What! do you think that opium is the cause that we are going to die?"-"We cannot positively say so, but what is certain is, that opium is a poison; it destroys all power and energy." Master Ting then began to curse the day when he first yielded to the temptation of smoking so detestable a drug, and he swore that, if he escaped, he would throw pipe, lamp, and opium into the water. " Why not now," said the missionaries-"why wait to another time?"—" I am too sick now; I cannot move."-" Well, we, who are well, will do this good service for you;" and they went towards the box which contained the smoking apparatus. But Ting waso quick for them; sick as he was, he made only one bound to secure his beloved box, and the agility displayed in the midst of his afflictions caused a general laugh at his expense.

The storm was, however, a really serious affair. In attempting to double a remarkable bend in the river they were twice thrown upon the shore, and the two barques which accompanied them were stranded and broken up; the secretary of the good prefect of Song-tche-hien and two soldiers of his retinue, sent to provide them with the good things of this world, were unfortunately drowned. It was not till the next day that they reached the town of Kin-tcheou, and their arrival was attended with general demonstrations of joy, for every one deemed them lost in the hurricane. The town itself was, however, in a state of considerable alarm and dejection on account of a dispute which had taken place a few days previously, on the occasion of some aquatic fêtes, between the Tartar garrison and the Chinese sailors. Several Chinese had been killed and still more wounded, and the passions of the combatants had not yet had time to assuage themselves. "The Chinese," M. Huc remarks, "could have exterminated the Tartars, but they wanted unity and leaders."

The last attempt at navigating the Blue River had given even the mandarins enough of its rough waters, and the palanquin-bearers were once more put into requisition. The sun had also now become so powerful that it was resolved to travel at night by the light of torches. In the town, where the streets are filled with lanterns of all sizes and colours, the effect of this proceeding was lost; but in the country the abundance of torches and lanterns carried by the escort produced a splendid effect, which was heightened by the occasional discharge of rockets and squibs. In China there is no perfect happiness without fireworks. This system of travelling by night does not seem, however, to have answered in a sanitary point of view, for the very same night, on their arrival at KuenKiang-hien, both travellers were suddenly seized with sickness at the very moment when they were receiving the visits of the chief mandarins of the place. So severe was the attack, that, although attended by the most skilful Chinese physicians, they were for a moment at the point of death, and the governor of the town carried his politeness so far as to have had a magnificent coffin prepared by the chief manufacturer of Kuen-Kiang-hien. The true character of such a compliment is scarcely appreciable out of China. There, one of the choicest presents that can be made to a sick man is a coffin. The Chinese like to have their last home by their sides; they are in the habit of contemplating death; and

so peaceably do they die, that M. Huc assures us that generally the only sign by which you can determine that a Chinese has left this world is, that he no longer asks for his pipe! Our missionary argues, strangely enough, that these peaceful deaths of the Chinese are to be attributed to their want of religious feeling, and their having no apprehensions for the future; hence, he also argues, that such is the most sorrowful and lamentable death possible.

After four days' detention at Kuen-Kiang-hien and a visit to their coffin, to which they openly expressed a preference to the palanquins, they left for Tien-men, celebrated for the beauty of its water-melons, and where they were most kindly received by the authorities. The mosquitoes were expelled their apartment, and everything was done to ensure their repose and quiet. All these kindly attentions the travellers do not attribute, either here or elsewhere, to any real sympathy entertained for them, but to apprehensions of the expenses the mandarins would be put to by any delay that might occur, and to the responsibility that would be incurred by their dying within their jurisdiction.

Proceeding hence to Han-tchuan, they witnessed a curious scene -a military mandarin leaving the city in disgrace, but so beloved by the citizens as to be conducted in triumph without the town, where his boots being taken off, they were hung up at the city-gates, and replaced by new ones. Travellers will know in future what a pair of old boots suspended over a gateway in China signifies. A large lake near Han-tchuan obliged them to have recourse once more to boats. Upon the lake were several floating islands artificially constructed of bamboo rafts, upon which were houses, fields, and gardens. The dwellers on these islands live by fishing, cultivating rice, and rearing ducks and other aquatic birds. In a country so populous as China is, floating islands of a similar description are met with on all the lakes. That the population of a country should be so great that there is no longer place for them on land, and that they should have to dwell upon the waters, struck the missionaries with horror; but even in populous China it is only a matter of choice-one among other methods adopted by that most ingenious people of obtaining a livelihood. They fish both with nets and with cormorants.

After crossing the lake, they re-entered their palanquins, and soon reached Han-yang, a great city on the Blue River, on the opposite side of which is the capital of the province Ou-tchang-fou. Here their reception was so cool, and the supper served to them so bad, that they ordered one at their own expense-an act which they regretted long afterwards, for the Chinese do not understand such a mode of proceeding. What they ought to have done, they said, was to order a supper and charge it to the prefect, and then quarter themselves, by way of punishment, for two or three days upon him; this, they aver, was the only system which they found to answer, and which made the difference between the manner they travelled from tribunal to tribunal, through the very country across which their predecessor, Monseigneur Perboyre, had been conducted also from station to station, but in chains, till death relieved him from his sufferings.

The next day they crossed the Blue River, which here resembled a great arm of the sea, with the immense city of Ou-tchang-fou enveloped

in the distant fog. The passage took three-quarters of an hour, with a favourable wind blowing hard, but they were two hours more threading their way through the innumerable junks which lay off the city; they then had a journey to perform through the streets of the capital, and it was past noon before they found themselves lodged near the palace of the viceroy-governor of the province of Hou-pé-in what they were pleased to consider as a clean but "insufficient pagoda." The reception at the capital of Hou-pé was by no means what it had been at the capital of Sse-tchouen. When the travellers complained, as usual, it was even intimated to them that they ought to deem themselves lucky in not being put in chains; and for the first time they deemed it prudent to forego for a time the usurped insignia of imperial power-the red sash and yellow cap.

Ou-tchang-fou is the most central and most commercial city of China; it is the London of the flowery empire, to which Pekin is only a Windsor. With its vast suburbs of Han-yang and Han-keou, it embraces a population of eight millions, nearly four times as much as that of the British capital. No idea of the internal commerce of China can be formed without visiting this great emporium of trade. Wearied with the little attention paid to their all-important presence, the missionaries, after the lapse of a few days, resumed the imperial colours, and forcing themselves into the presence of the viceroy, upbraided him with his want of civility and hospitality, reminded him that two French missionaries had already suffered martyrdom in the central city, and expressed their apprehensions of a similar fate. The viceroy reassured them, appointed them a better residence, and attached a cook to their service, who gave them no cause of complaint his ragoûts were pronounced to be delicious, and some of his hors-d'œuvres were inimitable.

At Ou-tchang-fou the travellers exchanged their mandarins and escort, and the preparations for a journey of some 900 miles in the hot season, always going southwards, having been completed, they were once more on their way. The first night was spent in a large village, where they were almost devoured by mosquitoes, and what they call cancrelats, a large and offensive beetle, whose pleasure it was to bite away at the tips of the ears and toes of sleeping people. Upon their arrival at Kouangtsi-hien they were lodged in convenient premises, but politely informed that the municipality would have nothing to do with the provisioning of the party. Here was another cause for dispute: palanquins were summoned, and an immediate personal visit was made to the governor. was in vain that they were told that the governor was presiding at a trial of great importance. They would see him even in his court of justice. So they made their way through the crowd and went in. What they saw must be related in their own words.

It

"All eyes turned upon us, and a general movement of surprise manifested itself throughout the assembly. Two men with long beards, in yellow caps and red sashes, had the effect of an apparition. As to ourselves, we were seized with a cold perspiration, and our legs trembling beneath us, we were on the point of fainting. Our eyes fixed, and our chests heaving, it seemed as if we lay under the influence of some horrible nightmare. The first object that presented itself to our sight on going into the Chinese court of justice, was the accused, the criminal,

the man they were in the act of trying. He was suspended in the midst of the court, like one of those lanterns of such fantastic shapes and enormous proportions which are seen in the great pagodas. Cords fastened to a large block fixed to a beam of the roof, held the criminal tied up by the wrists and ankles, so that his body assumed the form of an arch. Below were five or six executioners, armed with leather straps and rattan roots. The stifled moanings of the miserable creature, his limbs cut by repeated blows, and almost torn to rags, and then these executioners in a ferocious attitude, their faces and clothes sweltering in blood, presented so hideous a spectacle, that we shuddered with horror. The public present at such a spectacle appeared to be perfectly unmoved. Our yellow caps, for the time being, interested them more than anything else. Several laughed at the horror we expressed upon entering into the court."

This sufferer turned out to be a Kouan-Kouen, one of a numerous association in China of bandits, whose whole life is spent in legal outrages, robberies, and assassinations. To give and receive blows with indifference, to kill others with coolness, and to receive death themselves without fear, and, above all, to be faithful to the cause, are with these wretches the great points of honour. This miserable criminal, who had committed some fifty murders in his lifetime, was now undergoing torture in order to make him divulge the names of his accomplices; and the good missionaries assisted, as they would themselves express it, at a little further administration of the bamboo and the rattan, as seen through a trellised window from out of an apartment contiguous to the court of justice. This event furnishes an excuse for the usual long discourse upon Chinese administration of justice, in the course of which we are informed that, in 1849, our worthy missionaries were travelling in the province of Chantoung, when they came to a place where a number of small cages were suspended from the trees that bordered the road. "What is that?” they asked of their driver. "Look closely and you will see," was the answer; and looking attentively they found that each cage contained a human head, nearly in a state of putrefaction, and grimacing horribly, The road had been infested with robbers, and these were their relics. "I should not like to pass the night here," said Jehu. "Why so, if they have destroyed the robbers?" asked the missionaries. "Why? because all these heads utter the most horrible imprecations after nightfall. They have been heard shouting from all the villages around."

At their next station, Hoang-mei-hien, our travellers were not only well received, but actually treated to fireworks and a serenade. They were not pleased, however; the music was not to their liking, There are some people with whom the efforts of others to please them are always ineffectual. They do not look to the kindly feeling which prompts the attempt; they look critically to the execution, as some do to the dinners given them, and their selfish complacency finds a curious gratification in sneering at every sacrifice made to propitiate their wonderful selves.

At this point our travellers joined the high road from Pekin to Canton, entered the province of Kiang-si, and followed a more southerly direction. The highway was, however, like everything else that was Chinese, very repulsive, muddy or dusty according to the day, full of ruts, hilly, stony, and uneven. Wearied with such a progress, they embarked on the lake of Pou-yang, in a boat so full of toe-and-ear-eating