The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-10-13

ed from hour to hour. When the channel is
clear and the progress rapid, the shifting
scenery is full of interest and instruction and
when shoals or perilous rocks delay the ships
for hours or days, or compel the unloading OF
| even the coal, the gentlemen of the expedition
go ashore, and walk in all directions, climb up
| to temples and forts, traverse villages, enter
farm houses, go shopping in towns, and ex-
change visits with high officials. On this side
the question, therefore, we know good deal.
There were parts of the scenery which re-
minded the travellers strongly of Egypt. Some.
times there was dreamy sofness about the
hills like that of a sunset on the Nile. Swampy
fats, where reeds or grain grew tall and where
the tallest were cut for fences, or for the walls
of houses, were like Egypt too; and SO were
the interminable strings of wild fowl. One
which passed ever the Yangtse was several miles
long, folding and twisting so that it literally
darkened the sky Again, some parts subject
to Inundation, and buried under four or FIVE
feet of sand, were like the junction Of the
Lybian desert with Che fertile ground. In Egypt,
the peasants cut down through the sand to form
their cucumber-beds below and in China, they
break up the clay subsol and mix it with the
sand for tillage.
When the fats were left behind, and the
rocky hills drew close to the river to form ia
pass, the scenery became Scotch in its char
acter; at least, SO say the Scotchmen of the
party, including the Ambassador himself Their
hearts warmed to the distant hills, with pur-
pie bloom like heather upon them and the
clefts and the wooded hillocks, and the stretches
of dark frs, with gray rock peeping out re-
minding them of hunting days of old. Else
where there were woods reflected in the waters
in all the brilliant hines of an American autumn.
Here and there occurred large towns, supposed
to contain hundreds of thousands of busy peo-
pie, but found on entering to be mere heaps Of
ruins, with broad avenues grass.grown, and
narrow streets, choked with heaps of fallen
dwellings. The war which caused this devastar
ton sometimes came forward itself upon the
scene. An army on the hills made great
waving of flags and another army in the plain
below waved other flags, so as to present a fine
show and now and then a cannon-shot was
fired on the one side or the other If any prisr
oners were taken, their heads were cut off, the
natives said, but this did not very often happen.
The livelest battle-scene seems to have been at
Nganching, where the imperalists were WATCH
ing the city. The rebels within the forts were
foolish enough to fire on the British ships,
which sienced them with the smallest possible
number of replies, the effect of which was to
send the rebels scampering out of the city di.
rectly int the arms of the mperialists, who
were marching up. AS seen from the mast
head, the scene was curious one; the gestcu-
ations aud gambols of the advancing force, the
rush of the rebels from the fortified pagoda,
and their CONSERVATION at finding themselves
between two foes. The British, however, were
in no hostile mood, and they moved on, leaving
the coast clear for return to the pagoda, where
they left the silly aggressors pouring in as fast
as they had run out.
.lx-o Is al-
from the shore. The story of the Marking
forts firing on the whole line of ships is well
known through the newspapers, and need not
be repeated here. When the aggressors had
received their lesson, they were all eagerness to
apologize for the mistake of some foolish peo-
pie, who had been decaptated. Such was the
account they sent with all zeal up and down
the river, and acted upon, when the gun-boats
obliged to stand in near the shore and its de- es'
fences. The TAPPING people, some way up the
river, learned their lesson quickly-their rebel
chief our humble younger brother" desiring
aid against the demons" 1.-THE Imperialists,)
and when that could not be afforded, sending
down to the shore a present of two pieces of
red bunting and dozen fowls-a better offer
ing than puts of white smoke and hot cannon
balls
Rebels and Imperialist soldiers were not,
however, the sort of people the British had
most curiosity about, for they were no fair
specimen of the inhabitants. A landowner,
with whom the travellers had some converse
ton, thought the rebels very presuming in their
claims. He said that they laid hands on every
thing wherever they went, as given to them by
their Heavenly Father and that they vowed,
in their grace before meat to destroy the de-
mons, but that their Heavenly Father did not
seem to think much of them, for they were
"poor creatures" and did not get on very well.
1t was more pleasant and profitable to make
acquaintance with the people who lived beyond
the limits of the war on the river; to stop, and
converse with such men as this landowner, and
lool>into the peasants dwellings, and watch the
buying and selling, when the ships were taking
In stores.
While the gun-boats were hunting for chan
nell it was always temptation to go on shore
and shoot for the whole country was like game
preserve. Birds sprang up from under the
sportsmens feet, in places as strange as the
burial grounds which Bayard Taylor tells us of
as harboring pheasants in the grass OF the
graves In the midst of walled town as large
as Canton, but partly in ruins, Lord Elgin's
party started two brace of pheasants on hill
side. In the regions Of lakes and ponds, the
wild fowl were inexhaustible, and little inter-
tered with by the people There were no signs
OF degree of poverty which made the question
of subsistence difficulty. Game could not
continually abound among a starving people,
and be neglected by them, however fond OF
vegetable diet in preference to meat The chatty
and good -humored cottage farmers, who were
always ready for a visit from the strangers, gave
a pretty comfortable account of themselves.
They said they had generally from two to three
acres apiece, and paid about tenth part OF the
produce as tax. IL they worked for hire, they
got 120 cash (sixpence) day. The larger
farms were known by the herds of buffaloes in
the pastures, each one with little boy on its
back to keep it ORDER Among this rural pop
ulation, as we'll as in the towns, the supreme
reverence is for intellectual superiority. In the
house of proprietor of three or four acres
there was tablet, in the place of honor over
the door, in celebration of brother having
gained the highest literary degree, and being
therefore eligible for the highest Offices in the
State. The proprietor was not so distinguished,
and had bought his Bachelors degree for f35,
contenting himself with this because he must
have paid nearly ten times the amount for the
degree of Master, besides having some sort of
examination to go through. The anecdote in
dicates a somewhat Russian tone of public
morals "a condition. of public examination
which needs reform.
There were hamlets in which some Of the
peasants found it difficult to pay the two dollars
a wear requisite for the children's schooling but
it was in such places that miserable men were
found lying on the bare gound, in poor reed
huts, with lamp between two, smoking opium.
The habit entails poverty, of courses the mere
opium costing fourpence q day, while the work.
ing mans wages are but sixPence. Wife and
children depend on the bit on land, three acres
ofwhich were said to yield about ton and one.
third of pulse or grain annually, the value of