The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-02 00:00:00

A CHINESE TOWER.

Our tower was a very jolly place for invalids—in fact,
it was one of those places that either kill or cure ; and while
it proceeded at once to benefit me, it soon threatened to do
for my companion. Loopholes are very romantic things to
peep through (more especially if some fair face be attempt-
ing to do so at the same moment) ; they are interesting, no
doubt, and they have their uses occasionally; but the fact
is, we had rather too many of them. There were no less
than eighteen loopholes in this large upper room where we
captives chose to sleep ; and as the season was wet and
cold, the country bleak and hilly, it may well be believed
that they were occasionally regarded with " the eye of
curing." It was in vain that we filled them with pieces of
wood, and pasted them over with paper; that only.served
to create a more hideous noise at night, and by no means to
keep out the !damp chill wind which bowled rou f
odtnH_our
tower. Then the lofty room was simply composed es,
which admitted more wind; the boards below were not parti-
cularly close; and, altogether, a cage could scarcely have
been airy. The Chinese of the south never use fires for
purposes of warmth, though those of the north dine and
sleep on stoves. They mot the winter by putting on
more coats, and by sitting in7close inner rooms without
windows. The cold we experienced in kuni•tow-lek was
singularly penetrating, and no amount of clothes we had to
heap on was sufficient protection. tide sometimes buried
ourselves in blankets during the middle of the day, and I
got into the way of constantly wearing a Chinese hood of
green cloth, which coveredall the head except from the
lips to the eyes, and rose up into a pyramidal peak above,
which might have been a disfigurement to the eyes of foreign
devils, but vas a recommendation with the Celestials.
At one time we tried an earthen pot with a charcoal fire ;
intobu t thatour
eyes.c,l,bldu colder
rmn
Our
emptied
udt
only
nrknees,
y half
lt
ve
eahlaenbndue bucket
defencekhe
eret.
In ogke
ainwsets
the cold
then took a brisk felt it getting
walk, whichobfrouwgahtetrquiotveear
iwlmiivaytelleyelrafga:libaollnwed'. Seldom has hydropathy been pursued under
more difficult circumstances, or with better results. At
first this process was gone throughthe on the roof, but we dis-
covered
nation, of insanity;
oppositeevery
v e r y
fo towerr
Judgedcontained o
u r
not be determined. The
proceedings to be d.and the little

children used to gather round the door of the room that
was finally set apart for our baths, and comment in awe-
struck whispers on the splashing of the water. Opinions
were divided on the subject : there were some who asserted
against the explanation of insanity that the bathing was a
sf ecies of worship ; and others that it was done in expiation
of some horrid crime. In one of the classics of the Taiping
rebels there occurs the passage (taken, "rather think, from
an older work)—" Thang of the Shang dynasty, and Wang
of the Chow, honoured God with the intensest feeling : the
inscription on Shang's bathing-tub inculcated daily reno-
vation of mind, and hence God commanded him to assume
the government of the empire." Had this spirit prevailed
among the Chinese, we should at once have been elevated
to the dragon throne and placed in possession of the ver-
milion pencil ; but daily renovation' is es rare a virtue
among the Taipings as it with the Imperialists; it is even
rarer than it used to be to find Scotchmen acting on their
old adage, that "Cleanliness is next to godliness."

Returning, the writer had a taste of the delights
of the

MIDDLE PASSAGE.

At Shahnee-Choopg we had to wait a day and a night
before we could get a boat, and at last had to content our-
selves with the ordinary passage-junk, which was small,
rotten, had a hole in its side, and was crowded with twenty-
four bullocks and one hundred and three Chinese passen-
gers l All the space below deck was occupied by the bul-
locks, and how the passengers managed to dispose of them-
selves above, so as to leave room for the sailors to move,
was one of those mysteries which it is impsesible to under-
stand without visiting the East. We established ourselves
in a covered place on deck, something like the half a barrel
cut longitudinally, with the convex side uppermost, Anti-
cipating what would happen at night, I placed the patient
in the inner side of this den, and fortified the outside with
our luggage and my own body. But unfortunately the
barrel was capable of elongation by a cover which drew
out, and when it came on heavy rain during the night,
the passengers crowded under this cover, half suffocating us,
and dispersing the most fearful odours from their damp dirty
clothes. My poor companion was in a fainting condition
till we got a board opened, which gave him some air. These
hundred passengers added to the unpleasantness of the
situation, by hustling and talking loudly and angrily among
themselves, while a quarrel broke out among the sailors,
in which some very bad language was used, as to whether
they should stop or go on. The steersman, a rough cha-
racter, swore he would go on evtn if Mire' Bay
were choked up with rocks, giving the very
weighty reason that he had sailed all his life
between Macao and Canton ; and he had to be
dispossessed of the helm by force. The pressure of the
crowd was so great that, if I had given way to it, or yielded
to their entreaties, we should have run a very fair chance
of being squeezed or suffocated to death; and I was only
enabled to retain my position by the fortunate accident that
there was a very strong coolie next me, whom I convinced,
by sundry pricks with my bowie knife, that it was more
his interest to press outward than to press inward. As the
morning was wet, we did not leave till the other passengers
had gone, and noticed that they each paid two hundred
cash (about tenpence) as their fare, and that each individual
cash was handled and examined by the boatmen, so that
twenty thousand coins were scrutinised that morning.

The continuation of " Salem Chapel," which
flagged a little in the last number, now moves on
with increased spirit, and there is a favourable
critique of Mrs.Oliphant's " Life of Edward Irving."