By Jules Verne

CHAPTER I - The First Watch of the Night

"THERE'S some good in life after all!" exclaimed one of a party of six, as he rested his elbow upon the arm of a marble-backed seat, and nibbled a fragment of lotus-root.

"Yes, and evil too," replied another, recovering from a fit of coughing brought on by the pungency of a piece of shark's fin.

"Then be philosophers," said a man of more advanced years, who wore a pair of huge spectacles with wooden rims; "be philosophers, and take life as it comes; today you run the risk of being choked tomorrow discomfort departs as easily as this wine. Such is life!"

And he swallowed a glass of lukewarm wine, drawn from a vessel whence the steam arose in a cloud that was scarcely perceptible.

"For my part," observed a fourth, "I find existence very comfortable as long as there is plenty to live on and nothing to do."

"On the contrary," a fifth remarked, "true happiness consists in labour and study; to get happiness you must get knowledge."

"And find out at last that you know nothing."

"Well, and isn't that the beginning of wisdom?"

"And what, then, is the end of it?"

"Wisdom has no end," said the gentleman in the spectacles, "but there will be no want of contentment if only you possess common sense.

"And our host, what has he to say upon the subject? Does he hold life to be a condition of good or a condition of evil?" said the first speaker; addressing the entertainer of the party, who occupied, as of right, the seat at the head of the table.

The host had been sitting silent and abstracted, carelessly biting some melon-pips, and taking no part in the discussion. Appealed to thus directly, he merely pouted and uttered a contemptuous " Pooh!"

Common to all languages, "pooh" is a little monosyllable that may convey a large amount of meaning. It was now the signal for a general outburst of argument between the five guests each more decidedly advanced his own theory, whilst all were unanimous in wishing to elicit their host's opinion on the matter.

For some time he declined to make any further reply but at length admitted that as far as he was concerned, he found life neither particularly pleasant nor particularly unpleasant; that he looked upon it as rather an insignificant institution, and that he hardly thought any very intense enjoyment was to be got out of it.

A perfect volley of surprise broke from the whole audience.

"Only hear him! " cried one.

"Listen to him, a man that had never a rose-leaf to disturb his ease!" cried another.

"And so young too!"

"Yes, young and healthy!"

"And rich to boot!"

"Ay, rich enough!"

"Perhaps a little too rich!"

Animated as this cross-fire was, it failed to call up the faintest semblance of a smile upon the impassive countenance of the host; he only shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who had scarcely glanced at the book of his experience, and who certainly was in no hurry to turn over its pages.

He was thirty-one years of age, in the possession of perfect health and an ample fortune: his mind had suffered from no lack of culture, and ingeneral intelligence he was rather above the average. There seemed no reason why he should not be the happiest of mortals.

Presently the grave voice of the philosopher, like the voice of the leader of an ancient chorus, was heard above the tumult: "Young man,

if you are not perfectly happy, it is because your happiness has always been of a negative character. In order to appreciate health and good fortune aright it is necessary at some time or other to have been deprived of them. Now, you have never been ill; you have never known a misfortune; I repeat, therefore, that you are not capable of enjoying the blessings of which you are in possession."

He filled a glass with sparkling champagne of a costly brand, and holding it up, continued: "My friends, let me propose a toast, 'May some misfortune light upon our host - some little shadow settle on the brightness of his life!' "

The glasses of the company were drained. The host calmly made the least possible sign of acknowledgment, and relapsed into his normal apathy.

And where, it may now be asked, did this conversation take place? Was it in Paris, London, Vienna, or St. Petersburg? Was it in a restaurant of the Old World or the New that this little company was gathered, eating and drinking, genial yet without excess. One thing was altogether certain: it was not a party of Frenchmen, for not a word of politics had been spoken.

The apartment was moderate in size, but richly decorated. The rays of the setting sun glinted through panes of blue and orange glass; beyond the bay-windows wreaths of flowers, real and artificial, waved in the evening breeze, while variegated lintels mingled their pale light with the departing beams of day. The tops of the windows were ornamented with carved arabesques and varied sculpture representing the fauna and flora of a fantastic world, hangings of silk and wide double-bevelled mirrors adorned the walls, and suspended from the ceiling a punkah with wings of painted muslin kept the air in motion and relieved the oppressiveness of the temperature.

The table was oblong in shape, and made of black lacquer; its surface, uncovered by any tablecloth, reflected each separate article of porcelain or of silver as perfectly as if it had been a sheet of crystal.

As a substitute for table-napkins, every one was supplied with a considerable number of squares of paper figured over in various devices. The chairs arranged round the table were made with marble backs, as being more suitable to the climate than the padded lounges in general use elsewhere.

Comely girls did the waiting; they wore lilies and chrysanthemums in their raven locks, and had bracelets of gold and jade coquettishly twisted on their arms. Sprightly and full of smiles, they dexterously took the dishes on and off with one hand, leaving the other free to

wave a graceful fan, in order to maintain the current of air that had been set in motion by the punkah above.

Nothing could be more perfect or served in better style than the entire banquet. The Bignon of the district, as if aware that he was catering for connoisseurs, seemed to have been anxious to surpass himself in the preparation of the many dishes that crowded the menu.

For the first course they were handed sugared cakes, caviare, fried grasshoppers, dried fruits and Ning-Po oysters. Then followed successively, at short intervals, ducks', pigeons, and peewits' eggs poached, swallows' nests with mashed eggs, fricassees of ginseng, stewed sturgeons' gills, whales' sinews with sweet sauce, fresh-water tadpoles, fried crabs' spawn, sparrows' gizzards, sheeps' eyes stuffed with garlic, radishes in milk flavoured with apricot-kernels, matelotes of holithurias, bamboo-sprouts in syrup, and sweet salads. The last course consisted of pineapples from Singapore, earth-nuts, salted almonds, savoury mangoes, the white fleshy fruits of the "long-yen," the pulpy fruits of the "lit-chee," chestnuts, and preserved oranges from Canton.

For drinks, there were beer, wine from Chao-Chigne, and an ample supply of champagne. After the dessert, rice was served, which the guests raised to their mouths with little chopsticks.

Three hours were spent over the banquet. When it was ended, and at the time when, according to European usage, salvers of rose-water are frequently banded round, the waiting-maids brought napkins steeped in warm water, which all the company rubbed over their faces apparently; with great satisfaction.

The next stage of the entertainment was an hour's lounge to be occupied in listening to music. A group of players and singers entered, all pretty young girls, neatly and modestly attired. Their performance, however, could scarcely have been more inharmonious; it was hardly better than a series of yells, howls, and screeches, without rhythm and without time. The instruments were a worthy accompaniment to the chorus wretched violins, of which the strings kept entangling the bows; harsh guitars covered with snake-skins; shrill clarinets, and harmonicons all out of tune, like diminutive portable pianos.

The girls had been conducted into the room by a man who acted as loader of the Charivari. Having handed a programme to the host, and received in return a permission to perform what he chose, he made his orchestra strike up "The bouquet of ten flowers" a piece at that time enjoying a vast popularity in the fashionable world. This was followed by other pieces of similar character, and at the close of the performances, the troop, already handsomely paid, were enthusiastically applauded, and allowed to depart and gain fresh laurels from other audiences.

After the concert was over, the party rose from their seats, and, having interchanged a few ceremonious sentences, passed to another table. Here were laid six covered cups, each embossed with a portrait of B?dhidbarama, the celebrated Buddhist monk, standing on his legendary wheel. The cups were already full of boiling water, and each member of the party was prodded with a pinch of tea, which be put into the cup, without sugar, and at once drank off the infusion. And what tea it was!

Direct from the stores of Gibb, Gibb, and Co., there was no fear of its having been adulterated by extraneous matter, nor of its being coloured by turmeric or Prussian blue, no suspicion of its having already been subject to a process of decoction that left it only fit to lay upon the carpet of a dusty room; it was the Imperial tea in all its purity, the young leaf-buds allowed to be gathered only by children with gloves on their hands, and that but rarely, as every gathering kills a tree.

Europeans would have exclaimed in wonder at its flavour, but these connoisseurs sipped it slowly, with the air of men who duly

appreciated its quality. They were all men of thc upper class, handsomely attired in "hunchaols," a kind of thin shirt, "macooals," or short tunics, and "haols," long coats buttoned at the side. On their feet were yellow slippers and openwork socks, met by silk breeches that were fastened round the waist by tasseled scarves; on their chests they wore a kind of stomacher elaborately embroidered in silk. Elegant fans dangled from their girdles.

To this description it must be superfluous to add that they were natives of the land where the tea-tree annually yields its fragrant harvest.

To them the banquet, with its strange menu of swallows' nests, sharks' fins, and whale-sinew, had contained no novelty, much as they had been aware of the skill and delicacy with which everything had been served. But if there had been nothing to surprise them in the dishes of the entertainment, it was altogether the reverse when their host informed them that he had a communication that he wished to make.

The cups were all refilled, and, raising his own towards his lips, resting his elbow on the table and fixing his eyes on vacancy the host began to speak.

"Do not laugh at me, my friends, but I am going to introduce a new element into my life. Whether it will be for good or for evil, only the future can decide. This dinner, at which you give me the pleasure of your company, will be the last in which I shall entertain you as a bachelor. In another fortnight I shall be married!"

"Married and happy, the happiest of men " broke in the voice of the one who seemed to be the optimist of the party. "See," he added, "the omens are all in your favour;" and he pointed out how the lamps were shedding a clear pale light, how the magpies were chattering cheerily on the carved windows, and how the tea-leaves were all floating perpendicularly in the cups.

A volley of congratulations followed, but the host received them all with the most imperturbable coolness. It did not seem to occur to him that it was necessary to give the name of the lady and no one ventured to intrude upon his reserve. The philosophic gentleman alone did not join in the general chorus of good wishes, but, sitting with his arms folded, his eyes half closed, and an ironical smile upon his lip,

seemed as if he had some misgiving as to the propriety of the compliments that were being so freely paid.

The host looked at him; rising from his seat and approaching him, he said, with a voice that betrayed more emotion than his previous manner indicated: "Do you think I am too old to get married?"

"Too young, then ?"

"No."

"Am I making a mistake?"

"Very probably."

"The lady, you know, possesses every quality to make me happy, very true."

"Then where is the difficulty?"

" The difficulty is in yourself."

"Shall I never be happy?"

"Never till you have known what it is to be unhappy."

"I am out of the reach of misfortune."

"Then your case has no remedy."

"Nonsense! All nonsense!" broke in the youngest man in the room; "it is all idle trash listening to a theoretical machine like this philosopher!

He is full of theories, and his theories are bosh! Get married, my friend, get married as soon as you can. I should get married myself,

only I have a vow which forbids me. We will drink your health. Happiness and good luck be with you!"

"I can only repeat my hope," rejoined the stoic, "that happiness may come to him through some unhappiness."

The toast was drunk; the guests rose from their seats, clenched their fists as if they were about to begin a boxing-match, lifted them to their foreheads, bowed, and took their leave.

From the description thus given of the apartment where the entertainment was held, of the strange menu, and of the attire and deportment of the company, it will be at once comprehended that the Chinese here depicted were not of that conventional type which might step out from paper screens or from old oriental porcelain, but, on the other hand, were examples of the modern inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, who, by education, travel, and intercourse with Europeans, have adopted not a few of the habits of the civilized West. It was, in fact, in the saloon of one of the pleasure-yachts on the Pearl River at Canton that the wealthy Kin-Fo, with his inseparable companion, Wang the philosopher, had just been entertaining four of the earliest friends of his youth, Pao-shen, a mandarin of the fourth class, as his dark blue ball denoted, Yin-Pang, a rich silk merchant in Apothecary Street, Tim, a mere man of pleasure, and Hooal, a man of letters.

Thus, on the twenty-seventh day of the fourth moon, had been passed the first of the five watches into which the Chinese romantically divide the night.

CHAPTER II - Antecedents

KIN-FO had a special reason for giving a farewell dinner at Canton.

Having spent the greater part of his youth in the capital of Quang-Tung, he had, as a rich and generous young man, formed many friends there, and was anxious to pay them a compliment on this occasion. But nearly all of them had been dispersed on their various paths of life, and only the four already mentioned remained to accept the courteous invitation.

Kin-Fo's proper residence was at Shanghai; he had merely come to Canton for a few days' change of air and scene, and was about, that very evening, to take the steamboat that called at the principal ports along the coasts, and to return to his "yamen."

As a matter of course, Wang the philosopher had accompanied him, he was a tutor who rarely quitted his pupil's side. Tim had not been very much beside the mark when he irreverently called him "a theoretical machine,"

for he was never weary of propounding his sententious maxims, although it must be owned that they ordinarily had as little effect upon Kin-Fo as is proverbially represented by water on a duck's back.

Kin-Fo was a very fair type of the Chinese of the North, who have never become allied with the Tartars. Neither his father's family nor his mother's had a drop of Tartar blood in their veins, and for purity of breed his match could not be found anywhere in the southern rovinces, where both upper and lower classes have intermingled with the Manchow race. He was tall and well-built; his complexion was fair rather than yellow; his eyes and eyebrows were set almost horizontally, although they turned up slightly towards the temples; his nose was straight and altogether his physiognomy was so refined that be could hardly have passed unnoticed even among the handsome men of the well-favoured populations of the west. The Chinese characteristic that was most pronounced was his closely shorn head and neck, with the magnificent pigtail that descended from his poll like a serpent of glossy jet A fine moustache grew in a graceful semicircle over his upper lip, distinct as the sign that in musical notation denotes a pause. His nails were allowed to grow to the length of half an inch, delivering their testimony to the fact that he belonged to the class who never put their hands to manual labour of any kind; but anyhow his personal bearing was sufficient to show his independent position in life.

He had been born in Peking, a birthplace in the north of which the Chinese are ever proud, and to which they refer by descanting themselves as coming "from above." Here he had lived until he was six years old; when his residence had been changed to Shang-Hai.

His father, Chung-How, was a descendant of a good family in the north, and, like many of his countrymen, possessed a remarkable faculty for business. In the early part of his career there was hardly a product of that rich and populous territory that did not enter into his line of traffic, and paper from Swatow, silk from Soo-Choo, candied sugar from Formosa, tea from Han-Kow and Foo-Chow, iron from Honan, copper and brass from the province of Yunnan - all were included in the items of his commerce. His principal factory, or "kong," was at Shang-Hai, but he had other establishments at Nan-King, Tien-Tsin, Macao, and Hong-Kong. English steamers transported his merchandise, the electric cable kept him informed of the market price of silk at Lyons and of opium at Calcutta; for, unlike the generality of Chinese dealers who were under the pressure of the government or the influence of mandarins, he rose superior to prejudice, and so far from scorning the aid of steam and electricity, he welcomed them readily as efficient agents of progress. So successfully did Chung-How carry on his transactions, not only within the empire itself but likewise with the French, English, Portuguese and American firms at Shang-Hai, Macao, and Hong-Kong, that at the time when his son Kin-Fo was born, he had already amassed the sum of 400,000 dollars (80,000l). But in subsequent years this fortune was more than doubled by the opening of a new line of business in the export of coolies to America.

It is a fact established beyond dispute that the population of China (variously designated by the poetical appellations of the Celestial Empire, the Central Empire, and the Land of Flowers), is quite disproportionate even to the vast extent of territory it occupies, and cannot be estimated at less than 360,000,000 souls, or about a third of the entire population of the world.

Although the needs of a poor Chinaman are marvellously small, yet he must live; and China, notwithstanding its innumerable rice-plantations and its boundless fields of corn and millet, is incapable of growing sufficient produce to maintain him there is a vast overplus of people; and for this overplus a way of escape may be said to have been opened by the breaches made by French and English cannon in the moral no less than the material walls of the Celestial Empire.

It was towards North America, and especially towards California, that the stream of emigration rapidly flowed forth; and so violent was the flood that Congress was driven to take measures to restrict what was somewhat uncourageously designated as the invasion of the "yellow plague;" it was soon discovered that although the exodus of 50,000,000 emigrants would not very sensibly affect the Chinese Empire, the settlement of so large a contingent of Mongolians upon American soil threatened only too seriously to result in the absorption of the Anglo-Saxon element in the community.

Nevertheless, in defiance of all effort to establish restrictions, emigration continued to go on. The coolies, handy at all trades, and contented with a handful of rice, a cup of tea, and a little tobacco for their daily rations, did thoroughly well in California, Oregon, Virginia, and at Salt Lake, bringing with them everywhere a very considerable reduction in the wages of handicraft. Companies were started for their transport; five in various parts of China for their conveyance to America, and another at San Francisco to receive them on their arrival. A subordinate agency was likewise established, called Ting-Tong, which undertook to bring them back again.

The necessity for this Ting-Tong was imperative. Although the Chinese were ready enough to go and seek their fortune among the "Mellicans,"

as they called the people of the United States, it was always upon the rigid condition that die when they might, their bodies should not fail to be brought back and buried in their native land. Except under a special covenant to this effect, no contract could ever be made between an emigrant and a company and this "Death-agency" accordingly was set on foot to provide the means of conveyance for corpses from California to Shang-Hai, Hong-Kong or Tien-Tsin.

Among the first to foresee the lucrative character of this new branch of business was the enterprising Chung-How. He entered upon it with great zest, and when he died, in 1866, he was a director of the Quang-Tung Company in the province of that name, besides being sub-director of the Ting-Tong board at San Francisco.

So successful were Chung-How's speculations, that Kin-Fo at his father's death found himself heir to a fortune of 160,000l, nearly all invested in the Central Bank of California, where he had the good sense to leave it. Only nineteen years of age, without father and without mother, he would have been alone in the world had it not been for the society of his inseparable friend and mentor, Wang. For seventeen years had Wang resided in the yamen at Shang-Hai, the cherished companion alike of father and son; whither he had come and what were his antecedents probably none but Chung-How and Kin-Fo could tell, and even they would doubtless maintain a strict reserve upon the subject. It may, however, be well slightly to lift the veil and just glance at his early history.

It is a recognized certainty that in China the spirit roused by an insurrection will live and linger for many years in the hearts of many thousand men. In the seventeenth century, the celebrated Ming dynasty of Chinese origin had exercised its sway for three hundred years, when, in 1644, the representative of the race, finding himself too weak to cope with the enemies that threatened his capital, called in the aid of a Tartar king. The Tartar, nothing loth, hastened to his assistance, subdued the insurrection, but immediately took advantage of his position to dethrone the suppliant and caused iris own son Chun-chee to be proclaimed Emperor of China,

Henceforward, the usurper held the power, and the Chinese throne was filled by Manchow Emperors. Little by little, amongst the lower

classes of the population, the two races amalgamated, but amongst the richer families of the north the distinction between Chinese and Tartars was far more strictly maintained, and in some provinces even to the present day there are to be found those who have remained steadfast in their allegiance to the fallen dynasty.

Amongst these was Kin-Fo's father. Faithful to the traditions of his family, he would at any time have welcomed a revolt against the Tartar

power, although for three centuries it had been dominant in the empire.

His son, as might be expected, shared his political sentiments.

The reigning emperor in 1860 was Tsien-Fong, who declared war against France and England; a war which was concluded by the treaty of Peking on the 25th of October, in the same year. But previously to that date the ruling dynasty had been threatened by a formidable insurrection. The Chang-Mow or Tai-Ping, the "long-haired-rebels," had captured Nanking in 1853, and two years afterwards had taken Shang-Hai. After Tsien-Fong's death, his young son and successor had a hard matter to hold his own against the Tai-Ping, and except for the assistance of the Viceroy Li, Prince Kong, and more especially of the English Colonel Gordon, the chances are very great that he would not have retained his throne. The object of the Tai-Ping, sworn enemies to the Tartars, was to overthrow the reigning Tsing dynasty, and to replace it once more by that of Wang; their party was strongly organized, divided into four distinct bands;

the first, under a black banner commissioned for slaughter the second, under a red banner, set apart for incendiaries; the third, under a yellow banner, appointed for plunder; and the fourth, under a white banner, selected to superintend the commissariat of the other three.

Important military operations were carried on in the province of Kiang-Su. Soo-Choo and Kia-Hing, a few miles from Shang-Hai, fell into the hands of the insurgents, and were recaptured only after a severe struggle by the Imperial troops. Shang-Hai itself was attacked on the 18th of August, 1860, at the very time when, further north, the united French and English army, under Generals Grant and Montauban respectively, was storming the forts of the Pei-Ho river. Chung-How was then occupying a residence near Shang-Hai, close to the magnificent bridge that had been constructed by Chinese engineers, over the river of Soo-Chow, and, as may be supposed, was watching the insurrection with no unfavorable eye.

On the evening of the 18th, just after the rebels had been expelled from the town, the door of the merchant's house was suddenly burst open, and a fugitive flung himself at the master's feet. He was entirely unarmed, and if Chung-How had been inclined to surrender him to the Imperial troops, his life would have been forfeited at once. But Chung-How had no disposition to betray a Tai-Ping; he hastily closed the door and addressed the intruder

"I know nothing of you. I do not inquire whence you have come, or what you have been doing. Here you may consider yourself as my guest. Here you shall be safe."

Well-nigh exhausted as he was, the fugitive in broken sentences, began to pour forth his gratitude, but Chung-How checked him by asking,

"What is your name?"

"Wang!" was the answer.

"Enough! enough!" said Chung-How; "I ask no more."

Thus Wang's life was saved by an act which, had it been known, would doubtless have cost the blood of the benefactor.

In the course of the next few years, the rebellion was finally suppressed, and in 1864, the Tai-Ping Emperor, besieged in Nanking, poisoned himself to avoid falling into the hands of the Imperialists.

>From the hour of his rescue, Wang had remained under his deliverer's roof, no one ever venturing to question him about his past deeds. The atrocities committed by the rebels were said to have been very terrible,

and perhaps it was better to be ignorant as to which of the four banners Wang had followed, or at least to cherish the belief that he had only served in the corps that provided for the victualling of the others.

But whatever the fact might be, it was anyhow certain that Wang had been fortunate enough to find most comfortable quarters, and had done his best to repay the generosity that had rescued him. So wise and so amiable a friend bad he shown himself that Kin-Fo, upon his father's death, had retained him as an inseparable companion for himself. In the staid moralist of fifty-five, the philosopher in wooden spectacles, with the conventional moustache, it would have been hard to recognize the Tai-Ping of former days, given perhaps to robbery, to incendiaries, or to murder; with his long sober-coloured robe, with his figure slightly tending to embonpoint and with his professional skull-cap of fur decorated, according to Imperial regulation, with tufts of red, he might easily have passed for a member of the confraternity versed in the eighty thousand symbols of the Chinese calligraphy, or for one of the first-class literates privileged to pass beneath the great gate of Peking reserved excessively for "the sons of heaven." It is very likely that the rough nature of the rebel had been softened down by perpetual contact with Chung-How's frank and genial qualities, and that he had gradually subsided into the calm and gentle ways of speculative philosophy.

On the evening on which this story opens and immediately after the farewell dinner was over, Kin-Fo and Wang together proceeded towards the quay to meet the steamer that was to convey them back to Shang-Hai.

Kin-Fo was silent and thoughtful; Wang looked up and down, right and left; now at the moon, now at the stars, passing complacently through the gate of Perpetual Purity, with equal composure through the gate of Perpetual Joy, and underneath the shadow of the Pagoda of the Five Hundred Gods

The "Perma" was just getting up her steam to start. Kin-Fo and Wang went to the cabins that had been reserved for them, and were soon traversing the waters of the Pearl River, the rapid stream which daily receives the carcasses of prisoners who have been executed. The steamer shot past the breaches that had been made by the French cannonade, past the Pagoda of Nine Stories and past the Jardyne Point in the neighborhood of Whampoa,

where larger ships are wont to anchor; wending her way between the little islands and the stockades banks, she made a hundred miles during the night and at sunrise was passing "the Tiger's Jaw," and nearing the bars at the mouth of the estuary, while through the morning mist the Victoria peak of Hong-Kong, 1825 feet in height, was faintly visible.

The voyage was prosperous all through, and in due time Kin-Fo and his companion were safely landed at Shang-Hai, on the coast of the province of Kiang-Nan.

CHAPTER III - Shang-Hai

THERE is a Chinese proverb to the effect that "when swords are rusty and spades bright, when prisons are empty and granaries full, when temple-steps are worn by the footprints of the faithful, and courts of justice are overgrown with grass, when doctors go on foot, and bakers on horseback, then the Empire is justly governed."

However true the proverb may ordinarily be, to no country in the world is it less applicable than to China, for there, on the contrary, swords are bright, while spades are rusty, the prisons are full to overflowing, while the granaries are empty, bakers rather than doctors starve, and though the pagodas may attract the believers, the halls of justice never lack their train of criminals.

An empire which extends over an area of 1,300,000 square miles, which is more than 1400 miles in length, and varies from 900 to 1300 miles in breadth, and which contains eighteen vast provinces, exclusive of the dependent territories of Mongolia, Manchuria, Thibet, Tonquin, Corea, and the Loo-Choo Islands, can scarcely fail to have a very imperfect administration. The fact is quite evident to foreigners, and the Chinese themselves are beginning to have more than a suspicion of its truth.

The emperor alone, "the son of heaven," the father of his people, who rarely emerges from the august seclusion of his palace, whose word is law,

whose power over life and death is absolute, to whom the imperial revenues are due by right of birth, and before whom all foreheads are bowed low to the dust - he, indeed, may believe that he rules over the happiest of lands, and any attempt to undeceive him would be utterly vain; a "child of the skies" must be infallible, and can make no mistake.

It would seem, however, that Kin-Fo had come to the conclusion that it was preferable to live under European rather than Chinese authority; he had chosen to reside not in Shang-Hai itself, but in the portion of land that had been assigned to the English, and in which they maintained an independent autonomy.

Shang-Hai proper is situated on the left-hand bank of the little Wang-Poo River, which, meeting the Woosung at right-angles, joins the Yang-tse-Kiang, or Blue River, and ultimately flows into the Yellow Sea.

The town is oval in shape, lying north and south, enclosed by high walls, through which five outlets lead to the suburbs. The narrow

dirty streets are little better than paved lanes the dingy shops, without fronts or stocks to attract, are served by shop men often naked to their waists not a carriage nor palanquin, and very rarely even a horseman, passes by here and there are scattered a few native temples and chapels belonging to foreigners the only places of recreation are a "tea-garden," and a swampy parade-ground, the dampness of which is accounted for by its being on the site of former rice-fields. Such are the chief points of a town, which, undesirable as it may seem as a place of residence, yet numbers a population of 200,000, and is of considerable commercial importance.

It was, in fact, the first town, after the treaty of Nanking that was thrown open to European traffic and in which foreigners were permitted to form establishments. Outside the town and suburbs, three portions of territory have been granted, subject to an annual rent, to the French,

English, and Americans, who have settled there to the number at about two thousand.

Of the French grant of laud, or "concession," as being of the least importance, there is little to be said. It lies almost entirely to the north of the town, and extends as far as the small river Yong-King-Pang, which separates it from the English allotment. It contains the churches of the Lazarists and Jesuits, in connection with which four miles from the town is the College of Tsikav¨¦, where degrees arc granted to the Chinese. The colony, however, is so small that it can bear no comparison with its neighbours out of the ten houses of business established there in 1861, only three now remain, and even the discount bank has migrated to the English settlement.

The American territory lies nearer the Woo-Sung, and is separated from the English concession by the Soo-Choo Creek, panned by a wooden bridge. Its chief buildings are the Hotel Astor and the Mission Church.

There are also docks of some magnitude to which European as well as American vessels are brought for repairs.

But by far the most flourishing of the three settlements is that appropriated to the English. The handsome residences on the quays with luxurious verandahs and elegantly laid-out gardens, the abodes of merchant princes, the Oriental Bank, the "Kong" belonging to the celebrated house of Dent, the offices of the Jardynes, Russell's, and other great firms, the English club, the theatre, the tennis-court, the race-course, the library, all unite to form what has, with no inconsiderable amount of justice, been called "the model colony' and, under a liberal administration as it is, it is not altogether surprising to find what M. Leon Rousset has described as "une ville chinoise d'un caractere tout particulier et qui n'a d'analogue nulle part d'ailleurs."

The foregoing account explains how a stranger approaching this corner of the world by the picturesque route of the Blue River, would behold four flags floating in the same breeze, the French tricolour, the Union Jack,

the American stars and stripes, and the yellow cross on the green ground of the Celestial Empire.

Around Shang-Hai, the environs are flat and void of trees. Narrow stony roads and footpaths intersect each other at right angles; reservoirs and "arroyos" provide the vast rice plantations with water; numberless canals convey the junks right into the middle of the fields, as in Holland. The whole scene may be compared to a drawing of a great green landscape without a frame.

It was getting on towards midday when the "Perma" came alongside the quay of the eastern native port. Kin-Fo and Wang landed at once. The bustle and the crowd were indescribable. On the river were junks by hundreds, pleasure-beats, "sampans" resembling gondolas; gigs, and craft of every floating city, the home of a population estimated at less than 40,000 souls, all of the lower class, of whom the most fortunate and well-to-do can never hope to rise to the rank of literates or mandarins.

The quay, too, was as densely peopled as the water, for there swarmed a motley multitude, merchants of all grades, vendors of oranges, earth-nuts, and shaddocks, seamen of many a nation, water-carriers, fortune-tellers, Buddhist priests, Catholic priests, dressed in Chinese fashion, native soldiers, "tipaos," or local police, and "compradores," agents for transacting the negotiations with European merchants.