Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-11-18 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES.---LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1857,

those who may wish to- know what such a feast
costs in this city of Vienna, it may be stated that
the charge was 21. 14s. a head.
During the last day or two I have acquired some
valuable information relative to the actual state
of things in the Danubian Principalities. Several of
the more respectable Boyards have passed through
Vienna on their way to France and Italy, and they
are all and one of opinion that many years must
elapse before the bad seed which has recently been
sown in the sister provinces can be eradicated.
The violent tirades of the professional agitators
have completely addled the weak brains of the
peasants, and they now talk in a way which
would satisfy even the most renowned teachers
of the democratic social theories. The Rouman
peasants are naturally indolent ; and now that
they have been told so much about the
rights of man, &c., they are more than ever inclined
to indulge in the:dolee farniertte. The radical Boy-
ards begin to fancy that they have gone ahead too
fast; but, having advanced so far, they are ashamed
to retreat. Some of the Conservative Boyards say
that the question of the union has now become a
matter of inferior moment, because the Principali-
ties, whether united or separate, must necessarily
become the prey of Russia. On enquiring why such
a gloomy view was taken of the state of affairs in
Wallachia and Moldavia, the reply given was,
"The nation is so thoroughly demoralised, that
the highest bidders are sure to have it. In, the
treaty of peace it is said that an armed force,
capable of defending the two countries, shall be
formed, but this is morally impossible, as military
discipline has ceased, and the troops are to the full
as revolutionary as the people ? Messrs. Tell
and
mentioned) strut about in the uniform of generals,
and are treated as such both by the Divan ad hoc
and by the representativescof the Sultan." No
diplomatist believes that the union of the Danu-
bian Principalities is likely to take place, but the
Austrian Government does not appear to think
that the danger is over, for its semi-official writers
are continually playing at give -and take with the
Patric and Conrtitutionnel•
The Count of Fiatasiers arrived here yesterday
from Italy, and was visited in the course of the
evening by His Majesty the Emperor. The Prince
and Princess de Joinville are expected here to-day
from Trieste.

disturbances at Barcelona and in other parts of
Catalonia ; but the authorities were aware of their
movements, and were on their guard.

CHINA.

FROM THE "TIMES" CORRESPONDENT:)

SHANGHAI, SEPT. 15.

The Russians have played the first card in the game
which is now to come off here. On the 2nd inst. Count
Putiatin, Vice-Admiral Aide-de-Camp, General-Governor
of Amoor, Minister Plenipotentiary and Ambassador
Extradiornary from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor
of Russia to the Court of Pekin, landed here in plain
costume, and from a little boat, accompanied by a suite
as unpretending as their principal. He had left his
steamer at Woosung to coal, and took up his residence
with the American house of Russell and Co. The
only visits he paid, except return visits of ceremony,
were to Mr. Beale, an old friend, whose guest he
had been when stationed here before the war,
and to Mr. Hurd, the head of another of the prin-
cipal American houses at this port. From these little
facts some people draw conclusions as to a probable
coincidence of Russian and American councils in the
forthcoming negociations. Count Putiatin left Peters..
burgh in April, travelled overlaad in 70 days to the
Amour, where he found the America, a paddle-Wheel war
steamer, and sent round the Horu and across the Pacific
by our kind cousins. The Count steamed down to the
mouth of the Peiho, and, after delays and much difficulty,
succeeded in despatching an announcement of his mission
to Pekin. Having occupied the necessary interval very
agreeably in Shanghai, he is now gone north again to
seek an answer to his despatch. The American left
Woosung just before the heavy gale, and was seen stand-
ing northward making very heavy weather. The Admiral
has no force with him, and 'his embassy is evidently of an
entirely pacific character. It seems to be thought here
that the objects of the Russians extend no further than
to convert their college at. Pekin into a diplomatic es .7
tablishment, and to obtain a participation in the privi-
leges granted to nations " heretofore trading to Canton."
With an Ambassador at Pekin they can work out the
rest at their leisure. Meanwhile the odium of all coercive
measures is to be thrown upon the English and the French.
We shall see presently how this wid work. The
Count will, either go to Pekin, or he will be back
here before the next mail leaves. If Russia gains
time by this quick isolated step, she also risks. From
the treatment she receives *e may surely learn some-
thing that may be useful to us. The weather has broken
up, and we are suffering that succession of gales which
marks the change from the south-west to the north-east
monsoon. Steamers therefore will come slowly and at
much expenditure of coal from Hong Kong hither, and
sailing ships, if these incumbrances are to come, must be
towed. Atter the north-east: monsoon has settled into its
steady course, there are, however, usually some weeks of
fine weather, and we may still hope that something will
be done. I believe the Pekin winter to be a bugbear.
Lord Macartney did not leave Tartary for Pekia till the
21st of September, nor Pekia till the Bth of October.
He traversed the whole of China to Canton 'between the
Bth of October and the 18th of December. We have
heard nothing here either of the French Ambassador nor
Lord Elgin. But this is not dispiriting, as according to
former computations, they are not due here till the last
week in September. Perhaps this mail, as it passes Hong
Kong and Singapore, may gather some tidings of them
both. The French show signs of movement. As I came
here from Ningpo, we had opportunities of seeing the
coast. My little sailing-baat sped from point to point
during the intervals of light skies and moderate weather;
and then, when night or the gale grew heavy, flew with
half-closed wings before the howling blast, and nestled in
some winding inland creek known only to experienced
opium-runners, or the native fishermen or pirates.
During these devious fits 'of progress we saw the
Capricleuse :French frigate trying to make way north-
wards, and a large steam-transport, which we thought to
be Russian, but which turned out to be also French,
lying at anchor under a sheltering headland. This is all
the news Shanghai affords. The Russian officers have,
indeed, been most provokingly candid and circumstantial
as to their means of defence at Castres Bey and
Petropaulovski, and as to their escapes. It would be
easy to make an amusing letter out of these revelations
But cui bone ? Let these unpleasant topics cease. Some
Horace Walpole-is no doubt telling the next age all
about it. In a printed publication, having something
of the character of a newspaper, which is in circulation
at Cantons it was stated three weeks ago that negociations
for peace, together with resumption of trade, have been
delayed in consequence of the Eaelish " head man "
having been compelled to leave for Calcutta to take part
in the fiehting that is going on there, and the settlement
of these questions is accordingly for the time postponed,
until the American Commissioner " Forbes" (l) can come
down from Shanghai. If it be tree, as my informant
states, that Yeti has removed all prohibitions on trade,
you will probably hear of a brisk traffic being done at
Macao in the teas, &e , that we know were shut up in
Canton or its vicinity, as much of this and other produce
can reach Macao from the West without risk, so long as
the port and river at Canton are the only p _ants blockaded.
The most important, however, is what is said of the ad-
vance of the rebels towards Canton. Shaouhing is
scarcely 99 miles west of Canton, the river leads direct
from one place to the other, and there is no point between
the two at which the passage of a, force could be
disputed. Our best hope that the rebels will not tra-
verse those 90 miles must be that they know they
will find only famine at their jouraey's end.
Every one who looks at China from the English
point of view must now be satisfied that no treaty can be
worth the powder which salutes its signature if it do not
stipulate that China shall become one of the great family
of civilised nations. Foolish people treat children with
alternate coaxings and flaggings, and John Bull, with a
certain conceited pity, has so treated John Chinaman.
Treat him as a man, and exact from him the duties of a
civilised man, and you willetve no further trouble with
him. The port of Ningpo is an example of what a hun-
dred other large cities will *be when you have obtained
your object et an unrestricted trade up all the great rivers
on all the coasts of China. It is what Hangchau, Chin-
Kiang, and Nankin will be. Your direct trade is only to
the immediate district; the carrying trade will attract
ships from all European countries. Hamburg sends more
ships to the Ningpo river than even England. Every
petty nation that has a flog to lend or sell is represented
either by its sqaare-rigged ships or by its nondescript
lorchas. Sweden and Denmark, and Hamburg and Hol-
land, and Spain andrortugal, are all Christian nations, all
have traded, or say they have traded, to Canton, and all
have flags under which honest men and scoundrels
may equally claim treaty rights. But these nations
have no consuls and no men of war to keep
the peace. If an English, an American, or a French
ship comes to Ningpo, she must pay her tonnage dues,
and get her grand chop before she can clear out. If an
armed Hamburgh ship comes up the river she does as she
pleases, that is to say, she pays no tonnage dues, to the
obvious disadvantage of the ships of the great Powers.
'The other day five Europeans boarded a Chinese junk in
that river, and, under pretence of being officers entitled
to see her papas, plundered her of all the silver she had
on board. Complaint was made. One of the pirates
was found to be an English subject (one Murphy), he
was tried before the Consul, and sentenced to two years'
imprisonment. Several of the others were Europeans,
subjects of nations represented by no authorities here ;
there was no power to tcuch them. This is a difficulty
which must be met if we would not " open up China " to
all the outlaws of Earope ; but it is not insurmountable.
Let it be part of the treaty stipulation, that no nation
shall claim the advantages of a treaty power except
under conditions. Let one of those conditions be, that
when that nation is unrepresented at any . port, the
two senior Consuls, or the English, French, and
American Consuls, or the Consul chosen by the
other resident Consuls for that purpose, shall have
the consular power over the subjects of the nation. I
believe that to render the remedy perfect you must go
still further and provide that the resident Consuls shall
assist each other with any force at their command in
order to preserve order and enforce the provisions of the

treaty. The time is not far distant when commerce will
teach China how to defend herself. I noted these re-
marks at Ningpo in sight of an armed commercial steamer •
and four large ship-rigged vessels, all owned by mer-
chants of Ningpo who wear tails and carry fans. At
present, however, Chinese Mandarins in this peaceful
North dread all hostile contact with Europeans who are
not Portuguese, and it is rather our policy to cherish this
feeling. The case of Tobin, the man who went up the
country to collect " convoy money," or, in plain English,
to rob with violence, is another embarrassment. The man
is dead, and the circumstances are, it appears, worse than
they were first reported. When he had, either in anger
or by mischance, shot one of his Chinese comrades, the
villagers seized him and lashed his arms and legs to a
bamboo pole, passed up his back. The poor wretch's
torments must have been fearful. He could net lie, he
could not sit ; the thongs were eating through his flesh,
and his wounds were festering in the sun. A little boiled
rice was daily put into his mouth, and that was all• Six
days he endured this. On the seventh he was taken to
Dr. Parker's hospital, his wrists, and legs, and back, all
covered with sloughing sores. He had been tortured to
death. and he died. Now, this is the most important
fact that has occurred since the late war. The affair of
the Arrow is as nothing compared with it. It is the
murder of a British subject. There is no reason to
regret that this wretched ruffian has ceased to live ; but
we must recollect that he was tortured to death, not
because he was a robber, but because one of his own
fellow•rufans was slain. Trio conduct of the villagers
was in direct contravention of the treaty, and the
precedent, if allowed, will apply to any Englishman who
may accidentally violate Chinese 1 tNY while in pursuit of
peaceful avocations. I have no doubt that Mr. Meadows
will deal with this matter with the temper and firmness
it requires. The elder of the village must be made
accountable for this English (or rather Irish) life as he
would have been accountable for a Chinese life, and the
reparation should be very public. Otherwise any treaty
will be a dead letter. To-day the victim is a worthless
outlaw ; next year the victim's name may be Jardine, or
Dent, or Beak, or Gibbs, or Fletcher. As I thought the
English public may like to know what preparations the
Chinese are making in the neighbourhood of Ningpo, and
what probability there is of a repetition of the occurrences
of the last war, I determined to spend a few days in a
survey of the scenes of our most important conflicts.
I believe that John Bull will be utterly disap-
pointed of anything like a fight. Ningpo itself is
defended along the whole extent of its walls by
two guns, whose explosion would be terrific and cause
immediate destruction to all who should approach—to fire
them. It is said there are a thousand soldiers in the
city and the assertion is most probable. But the Chinese
who invented everything, invented that system of parches e
which is the ornament and safeguard of our military
system. They carry out the principle further than we
have yet done. In China a soldier receives a certain
modicum of cash and rice, amounting perhaps to 6d a
day; he attends at parade now and then when called
upon. and he works at his trade at all other times. T his
is an advantageous position, and the Mandarins take care
he shall not get it for nothing, From fifteen to thirty
dollars, according to the dem seal, is the price paid for his
commission by a private in the Chinese army. Some time
since some tall strong Shantung fellows who were out of
employ wished to enlist, Their offer was laughed at, and
some old men and cripples whose friends wished to pro-
vide for them in the army of the Empire were duly regis-
tered. I believe that if, at any moment, Commander
Dew were to land his seventeen Marines and proceed to
the Toutai's Yaman and were to tell him that his Sove-
reign had resolved to annex Ningpo and the surrounding
plain, and that Mr. Consul Meadows now reigned as
Toutai, the old gen'lernan would simply protest that such
conduct was " most unreasonable" and would be led away
like a lamb. As to the people, they are so worn out with
continual "squeezes" that a judicious proclamation would
quite reconcile them to the change.

CHUSAN HARBOUR, Sr.rT. 9.

On the 6th of September, in a boat with two ears and
two eyes, a foresail and mainsail kept taut by bamboo
sticks worked into them, and a comfortable cabin, built
as a hurricane-house, and occupying nearly all her length,
I started with a strong adverse wind for Chusan. The
Rosina is partly used as a passage boat, partly to carry
information, but chiefly to carry "drug"—the commercial
name for opium. She belongs to an eminent commercial
house, is navigated by one European and a Chinese crew,
has good store of Minie rifles, always fit for service, is a
good sea boat, a fast sailer and the type of' a numerous
class. Everybody of any importance has one of these
Ningpo boats. It would take more space than I dare
occupy to describe the ten miles of the river Yung. The
simple, yet effective ice-houses, and the no less simply
constructed salt stores which occupy the right bank; the
wood junks, each in its separate mud dock (so closely
peeked that there is not room for another), which line the
left bank ; "the " frowning" batteries which are built at
the end of every reach, all deserve description. I can
only pause, however, to say a word about the batteries.
They are built of stone, and some of them have very
powerful guns, but the wonder is that their armament has
not long ago been stolen by the pirates and convoy
lorchas. I have visited them all in different excursions
down the river. There is no guard-house, no magazine,
no sponge.rammer or worm ; the iron guns and the stone
walls make up the batter y. A naval officer who
accompanied me in one of nay wanderings was positively
distressed at the forlorn condition of an English-cast
32-pounder, 13 feet long, and weighing 4 tons, so mounted
that a charge of a pound of powder would have thrown it
from its rotten carriage. I believe he would have
provided the poo: gun with a decent carriage at his own
expanse, oven if he knew that he must meet its fire next
day, so indignant was he that a good gun should be so
shamefully treated. At the mouth of the Yung we come
to the city of Chinghai with its enormous fleet of junks
which crowd the river, and its extensive artificial sea
beach of hewn granite. Hero are those extraordinary
natural fortifications which the Chinese attempted to
utilize in the last war, and this was the scene of the most
tremendous slaughter that occurred. The mouth of the
Yung is beset by rocky islets and sunken shoals, which
make the approach difficult and the channels intricate-
Each shore is commanded by a high conical hill. That
on the left is surmounted by a stone tower ; that on the
right by a fort and josshouse. Oa a former occasion I
passed a 'night and two days in that Pagan
temple. I slept, wrapped in my cloak, at the
feet of a terrible Indian god. All night long the
Abbot in his mitre sat upon his throne turning his
back upon a gigantic idol of "the Queen of Heaver]," and
his priests sat round the table before him. A thousand
little dishes, each containing some article of vegetable
food curiously cooked, preserved, or made into sweet-
meats, covered not only the table, but other temporary
scaffoldings erected for the purpose throughout thetemple.
It was a great ceremony, with a highly emblematical
ritual. The prayer was evidently for a favourable
harvest, for every fruit was taken up and blessed and
chanted over. The picturesque scene, the monotonous
mutterings, and perhaps also the musquitoes kept me
awake till past midnight. When I awoke in the mornine
the sun was invading my corridor, and priests, and food,
and scaffoldings, and tables, had all vanished. But the
old Indian god scowled upon us as ridiculously fierce as
ever. Alas ! his divine scowl had not scared away the
musquitoes. From the embrasures oa the top of this
Josshouse Fart 1 could look down upon the scene of that
terrible carnage, when in the last war the Chinese army
of ten thousand men were routed in ten minutes, when
the flying multitude was arrested by a line of bayonets,
and when before the slaughter could be stayed, one half
the number either perished by the steel, or were forced
into the broad river. This lesson, repeated at Ningpo,
and again on the hills beyond, has never been forgotten.
In the Josshouse Fort there is one gun, mounted,
probably, as an alarm gun. There is another sunk half
way in the earth, with a British spike in it. These are
the defences of the mouth of the Yung. At 4 o'clock in
the morning we were tacking through the islands; at ten
we cast anchor in the harbour of Chusan. We are accus-
tomed in England to think of Chusau as a fine large
island, open to the Chinese seas, where you may see the
sun, with purple-coloured face, lift up his head from the
distant waters. So upon its eastern side it probably is ;
not so as we are in the habit of approaching it. The
harbour of Tinghai is a land locked strait about three
quarters of a mile across—not unlike the Menai in some
places. You might be in a moderate sized river ; you

have come In through a labrynth of narrow channels, and
yOu see to evidence of an open sea. Many a city upon a
Chinese river looks more like_a seaport than this famous
port and harbour of Tinghai. Nothing can be more
picturesque to look upon than the mountains and valleys
of this fair island, which now occupies all scope of
view upon our left. Gradual elevations, clothed
with small hamlets and many couloured vegetation, swell
from the strait, affording charming sites for barracks,
and hospitals and head-quarter houses. Away behind
the interior hills rise into peaks on which the clouds are
resting. Narrow gorges and deep valleys run far up
inland, offering shady retreats in hot summer months and
fertile fields in every season. The least pleasant is the
flat on which the city stands. Opposite to the spot where
we cast anchor the hills retire from the strait and form an
amphitheatre. The interval between their base and the
wa-er is a semicircle. Let the hills represent the arc of a
strung bow and the strain represent the string. The area
between is the swampy marsh upon which the city of
Tinghai stands, surrounded by paddy-fields and moist
grounds. Just at that point of the string where the
archer would fix the notch of his arrow there is a hill
which nature seems to have placed there to command and
protect the strait: Such is the natural site of the laud at
the port of Chusan. Along the shore of the strait, to the
full extent of the string of our bow, rues a green embank-
ment. Yoe would think it a dam thrown up as a protec-
tion against high tides, but that at regular intervals em
hrasures are left. The hill which stands .in the centre o
the chord of our arc has been fortified with walls and para-
pets of stone masonry ; and it is still surmounted by that
same josshouse which 17 years ago obtained for it the name
of Josshouse Hill. There are stone batteries aiso upon
several of the islests; all the narrow channels are thus
commanded, and there is a large battery far up the valley.
Except that the harbour contains, instead of a Mandarin
fleet, some 60 small trading junks, the place Must now
look much as it did when our fleet first sailed in—when
the Chinese Admiral so feelingly expostulated with us
-upon the injustice of revenging insults put upon us by the
Cantonese by slaughtering the defenders of those weak
intrenchments—when the old man, with a dignity and
courage worthy of a better fate, acknowledged that our
power was too great to allow him to hope for,sticeess, but
declaring that his orders and his duty enjoined him to die
at his post, went smiling down the side of our t/ tgship,
resigned to meet the doom which too surely awaited him
in its most painful form on the morrow. If I recall the
memory of these painful scenes it is to protest against
'their recurrence. If these places are to be again occupied
let it be done suddenly, before any peremptory orders
for a desperate defence can arrive from Pekin, Not that
Tinghai is, under proper conditions, incapable of
defence. Garrisoned by English troops, .it is difficult
to conceive a place more impregnable. Approached
by narrow rock-bound channels, covered by com-
manding heights, and having its own citadel hill,
it is formed for a place of strength ; but the Chinese at
Chusan seem to have learnt only one lesson from the
last war—the inutility of all defences. Yes ; I think
they have learnt one other lesson ; it is the British dollars
follow hard upon British bayonets. 1 landed and
walked along thennabankment ; there was not a gun.. I
climbed the dosshouse hill. The masses of masonry that
look so imposing from below are all loose blocks which a
shot would topple over; still no gun. In the josshouse
was an old priest muttering and beating upon his little
drum, another smoking his pipe, and a third asleep. A
half-starved dog seemed perishing 'Under the same vice of
idleness which pervades the place. His diet in a
Buddhist temple could not be very succulent, and his
skin was worn raw from lying all day long upon the
stone floor.- Sloth had eaten into his bones. Two or
three Chinamen. sailors from the junks, were venting
their "Ey yaw," as they examined the represintatlone of
the Buddhist Hell. Not witnout reason, for the joss-
hcnse at Tinghai is richer than any temple I have seen
in ingenious tortures. The kings of Hell sit in judgment
like Chinese mandarins. The executioners are braying
the victims in morters, boiling them in furnaces, skin-
ning them with knives, throwing them to tigers,
squeezing them between boards, cutting them up
and hanging the bits on hooks, beating them
with mallets, terms nting them with hot irons—all repre-
sented in coloured plaster groups with a horrible fidelity
of detail, and with an ingenuity of conception as to the
instruments employed, which would argue that the
Buddhist priests are no contemptible mechanics, and that
it is well for the barbarians they are not employed in the
invention of warlike tormentarics. No fve, not even the
dog, took any notice of :ne. I looked from the top of the
hill down into the city of Tinghai, into the suburb which
extends from it up to the water side, upon the pagoda
and the Art illery-hill, and upon the English tombs which
cover the descent of the hill upon which I was standing.
Everything was swamp and paddy. Everything had the
same listless unprepared, care-abandoned air. There
was not a gun visible from the spot, not a muzzle
lurking behind auy one of the hundreds of embra•
sures which I could count around. A few junks
we:o working up the canal or river which runs from
the harbour up to the city, and some others were un-.
josshouse furniture upon the wharf below me. I
had heard men of the last war talk of gravel walks and
Parade grounds. European houses and drained spaces.
No vestige of any such innovation remains. All is gone
back to Chinese notions of propriety—squalid houses for
Chinamen to herd in, paddy crops for Chinamen to eat.
These paddy-fields were now full of water ; the city also
was slightly flooded. The Chinamen seemed to have
clustered like dies upon the only foul spot in this beautiful '
I walked down into the English burial ground.
The inscriptions have been torn away from the square
tomb, and the obelisk had been broken. The Chinese
hove crowded, the place with the coffins of their own
dead. A fellow who was working there at this " pigeon "
addressed me in the jargon they use for English and told
me there had been an insurrection in the city two days
before. The " soldiers" had a,,:•emble,l from their shops,'
and had beaten the Mandarin almost to death because lie
had paid them their pay in the new depreciated cash.
He ended by a patriotic wish that we English would come
and take the island again. His English accpiirements
showed that he had found his account in the last occupa-
tion. If it be our poticy to retake Chusan it may be
done without the expenditure of a shot or a life, provided
it be done promptly. I know not where else we can find
a basis for naval operations upon the coast. It we have
to police the Chinese coast, or to hold power in the great
inland waters, we must have a large naval depot, and that
can be no other than the harbour of Tinghai. It will,
however, be a naval depot and no more- Not only past
experience, but also all a priori reasoning shows that
Chusan can never become a place of great commerce. I
had seen enough—enough, at least, for one day. It was
raining a drizzling rain and blowing hard I was racked
with rheumatism, and tortured by that horrid pestilence
which no one can escape, for they are the blossoms of this
fl3vvery land—an eruption of boils. I sent into the city
for Coolies and a chair to penetrate a little into the
interior on the morrow, and I returned on board. The
Rosins lay just abreast mi a long low building of European
or rather of Anglo-Indian build-11 windows and a
verandah. Part of it is now used as a Custom-house. and
the rest is dirt and desolation. This was the British
hospital. The man who chose that site is guilty
of many of the deaths recorded in that graveyard,
and also of many of those upon the Cameronian-hill.
There are hills and valleys close around where
at small labour you misht make a little Eden. If you
must be near the dirty town and the Chinese samshoo—
which, of all Chinese inventions, is the most deadly to the
English soldier—there is the Joashouse Hill. The British
hospital is placed upon a level with the swamp, in full
reek of the paddy fields, within the circuit of the stench
of that filthy suburb, and in a spot where samshoo can be
conveniently handed in through every window, yet we
wonder in England that Chusan Ives found unhealthy. I
had full opportunity of contemplating this place. No
s toner had I got on board than the breez4 began a gale,
and the misty rain a driving storm. Then rose the
tempest—a tempest such as the China seas only can
show. It lasted all night, and the next day and the
next. During a momentary pause we pass, through one
of the narrow islet ehennels, a large screw-steamer,
carrying her funnel abefc her mainmast, struggling down
under the mainland. Sine one has since said it was the
Durance French transport, and that she grounded on the
height of the Typhoon. The Shangh2e Shipping List
afterwards repeated this latter report. It may bo so,
but I doubt it. I believe it was the same steamer I saw two
lays later in company with the Capricieuse off Lookong.
Sh- might be the Darance, but we did not make her out to
be aground or any otherwise in "durance vile." Whatever
she was, however, she passed like a spirit on this hurri-
cane. Outside the typhoon was sweeping the seas and
ravaging the coasts. It drove the light ship at the mouth
of the fang-tse•Kiang from her moorings, it strewed the
junks about in pieces of floating wrecks, it broke down
walls, it cast away a three-masted English ship, and lifted
a schooner over the sand of the south bank and deposited.
her in the paddy-fields. It dammed up the waters of
Wang-poo and the Yung, and here in this bay of Chusan
it put junks adrift and bands of wreckers upon the alert.
The Rosina had ground tackle made for such emergen-
cies. She drifted at first, but her second anchor brought
her up. We were. fortunately in the best harbour on the
coast of China. After this experience I have a right to
speak well of the harbour of Chusan. On the night of the
third day, we sailed forth with a moderate wind and a
bright moonlight.

SHANGHAI, SEPT 20.

Since the R,2mi started with the mail and my despatch
we have the semi-monthly from England with dates to
the 2Sth J‘ily. Messrs. Jardine's house. .ia their usual
grand seigneur way of doing things, despatch a fast
private steamer to overtake the mail, or perhaps to
outstrip it. So I have an opportunity for more last
words I have nothing to chronicle, however, except the
blank disappointment of all the English residents at the
news just received. Delhi net fallen, and Lord Palmer-
ston's Pekin monomania strong upon him. We had
hoped that Lord Elgin, sharing, as we all believe he
does, the universal feeling here. would have obtained
leave to allow the Russians and the French to go up and
each get his kick at the mouth of the Pehio, while
he stayed south and took Canton. The Russian has
got over his twenty days' naval koo-too. The Frenchman
comes on very leisurely to take his turn of humiliation.
Lord Elgin may now,. 1 suppose, be expected in about a
fortnight. He also,:with the navy of England, must dance
attendance in a sea of winter tempests while the petty
Mandarin at the mouth of the Pekin river is calculating
how long he can keep up the exhibition of the humiliation

of the "barbarians." Oh! that narrow bine ribband of
the Foreign-office. It is harder, and tougher, and stiffer
than the red tape of the Circumlocution-office; it swathes
the energies of nations, while the rsd tape only cripples
a clerk. The Emperor has just taken pains, by an
announcement in the Pekin Gazette, to let the world
know that he is informed of and approves Yeh's
doings at Canton. France and Russia have no
casus bell—they have no factories destroyed. no
steamers taken and burnt, no proclamation of head
money to resent. They have their quarrel to seek, And
they go up, therefore, and offer their faces to the smiler.
We are in the position of that valorus individual who
said. " Sir, you have tweaked my nose, you have kicked
In) behind, you have knocked my hat over my eyes I
Tale care, sir; you may go too far; you may rouse the
sleeping lion Oh for one three months of the elder
Pi't!He would have telegraphed—" Take Canton and
he'd it n ith your present force." And it would have
beta done ; f 'is although the authorities here are afraid
of " Her Majesty's Opposition," they are not afraid of
Chinamen. With Canton taken. and some gnntoats at Tien-
sing, we might write our own treaty and have it signed in
three months. But no; years, and millions, and perhaps
fleets, certainly human lives must be sacrificed is the pedan-
try of diplomacy. Somehow or other those six black rams
who are reputed to be the genii of Canton city seem to
have obtained seats in our House of Commons. Then we
are told that sailing ships can carry troops faster than
steamships, and, judging from the choice made, we are
also to believe that regular old wster-bruisers with in-
different antecedents are better than good screw vessels-
-1 find that some people here know, or profess to know,
something about these ships—what one of them was sold
for, and how many times that amount he charter to Ch"na
will bring, what happened to another of them, and o on.
However, let es hope that they will bring us our 1,500
marines out in time to eat their Christmas Hinter in
Canton.