The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-15 00:00:00

BRITISH EXPEDITION TO CHINA.

(FROM THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OP THE "TIMES.")
ON BOARD THE ADEN, MAT 21.
To-morrow, we are told, we shall see the coast of
China. By "we " I mean that portion of the
Chinese expedition which pursues its straightfor-
ward course to Hong Kong, for General Ashburn-
ham and his suite left us at Suez, and go round by
Bombay. The little sharp-nosed Aden has made a
passage like the flight of a bird. She is rather
lively and sportive, and even now is playfully re-
senting the affront of a passing squall in a manner
which makes writing a difficulty ; but every one cn
board agrees that for speed and beauty she leaves
nothing to be desired. When the north-east mon-
soon blows hard in our teeth, and passing squalls
deluge us with rain and stifle us with spray, and
drive us below, and when the ports are screwed
tight, and we suffocate in the sultry nighte and are
rattled about in our cabins like pills in a pill-box, we
groan heavily, and even " captains and colonels and
knights-at-arms" are sad and miserable. But let us
still, although longing to escape from her, speak well
of the ship that bears us swiftly to the land, and
let us speak well also of the careful and courteous
sailor who commands her, and watches her as a
father watches the gambols of his favourite child.
And now the events of what is facetiously called the
"overland journey" are nearly over. It is such a
pleasant thing to have climbed the great pyramid
under a noonday sun, and looked upon the Libyan
desert with expectation of an impending sun stroke.
It is well to have lain gasping on the deck as the
ship glided through that breezeless Red Sea, and
to have looked languidly on the range of Mount
Sinai and the port of Mecca. It is a comfort to
know that Aden looks like a mighty mass of coke,
with huts and fortifications scattered about among
its crevices ; and it is wonderful to have heard
military men quartered there say they rather like
it. The track, however, is so beaten and the
journey so common, that even your companions
don't talk of the slimy wonders ot the Nile. Their
talk is of the relative accommodation of the differ-
ent ships, and the mercy of Providence which pre-
serves six stout men from suffocation through the
journey in a fiery desert, close packed in a van
whose utmost capacity appeared at first sight equal
to holding four good-sized children. But there is
no really pleasurable sensation until after that
dreadful passage of the Red Sea between the cal-
cined shores of "Araby the Blest" and Africa ;
and after the hot pilgrimage across the Indian
Ocean Ceylon appears clad in full tropical green,
with her domes of broad plantain leaves, her far-
sweeping forests of cocoas and mangoes, and her
inland highlands, which promise streams and sha-
dow. I should like to dwell in lengthened descrip-
tion upon Ceylon. All that we see of forest beauty
at Windsor, or Richmond, or Blenheim, or Beau-
desert, or Cannock-chase—all that we have of bill
and valley, winding rivers, forest glades, and
bright green turf rides is here. Added to all this,
Ceylon has the mighty vegetation of the east ; and
the savages stalking along in the sun, clad only
in a scant girdle of some striking colour, are so
swart, so lusty, and so picturesque. But Ceylon
has nothing to do with the Chinese expedition, ex-
cept to give its leaders a few hours' respite. So,
off to shipboard in a canoe 16 inches broad; which
despite its outrigger of bamboO, seems but a man-
trap invented in the interest of the sharks..
Our course is across the broad unquiet Bay of
Bengal. Again we lose sight of land, journeying
day after day without apparent progress in that
eternal blue circle which seems to realise the mathe-
matician's definition of space as a circle whose centre
is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere,
without an event throughout the day, except that
ever and anois a shoal of flying fish spring up from
the smooth sea, and go off in radii, dotting and
skimming their transparent wings glittering in the
sun, and then splashing into the sea again at a safe
distancesleepa from the dolphin which is prowling after
them below. One of these poetical creatures flew g
through my port, and came flop upon me in my
afesPwinlig tighltisinsg gave
ince:
thei caolmd'orwerhigogrlriinbgle
prickly,
fright than I ever felt in my life. .
The Straits of Malacca are not so narrow that we
can often see the land, but on the morning of the
13th ot May we enter a British possession, which I
must say something about.
After long steaming in smooth water in the neigh-
bourhood of well-wooded islands, enjoying reputa-
tions for piracy, cannibalism, flying monkeys,
gigantic serpents, and other amenities we at length
enter a narrow strait. On the left we have the
lofty mainland of Siam rising from the woody low-
lands and stretching away peak over peak till their
outlines grow dimmer and more dim, and .he eye
can no more reflect them. On the right, about two
miles distant, lies an island covered with palms and
thick underwood of spice trees, the huge cocoanut
trees rising like domes on the tops of hills, and
bending also over the margin of the sea. 'there are
miniature bays with a beach of shining sand, and
white bungalows glittering through the foliage
which shelters them from the fierce sun. Crowning
an upland, rising to an altitude of 2,500 feet, is a
flagstaff ; and our telescopes, aided by private infor-
mation from the captain, tell us that it is the British
flag which lags lazily waiting for a breeze. As we
s•eau-i rapidly along between the island and the
mainland we enter a roadstead crowded with small
vessels, and a town of low buildings, with a rude
wooden pier, is on our right. Six hours on shore,
for this is Penang, heretofore celebrated for its
" lawyers," but destined perchance to be hereafter
better known as the sanitary station of the Chinese
expedition.
Six hours on shore. Four sturdy Malays ply
their paddles, and impel their, cranky canoe
rapidly to the pier. We are deposited among a
population of Chinamen. At the entrance to
the pier is a large supply of little carriages,
called palanquins, but resembling tiny double-
seated broughams, with sides and backs formed
of Venetian blinds, each drawn by a pony,
so small and so stout that the eyes of
commissaries and purveyors were at once
arrested, and such diligent inquiries are made as to
the number and value of such useful-looking quad-
rupeds that I make haste-to hire one for the nonce,
lest they should all have the broad arrow put upon
their shoulders and be spirited away before we had
had our jaunt. Tel dive into one of these pa-
le
ant Id
u turbanlns
Penang is not quite a metropolis. Its streets
are not very many, and its buildings are not among
w was
nitnhdse
se dr
ea firstnn na ant en
nc es sf irt fores
a roof of tiles or a thatch of dried plantain
the
leaves. Under thesesunpit h hats
rays.
Chinamah works
at his
thetai
orloftiest.gr eaStqoutaorfealwih, white pmilalnargso,3etiegihuet. feEevtehnigthhe,
support
trade, or sells his mangoes, or pineapples, or plan-