This sentiment of the Irish poet was peculiarly appropriate for men, who, like the patriots and "rebels" about me, were facing prison or death at every hour.

I shall bring together here some incidents of my life in Australia that are not closely connected with other events there. We made some tremendous profits in Melbourne, the sort that makes one's blood tingle, and transforms cool men into wild speculators. I have already mentioned the profit of 200 per cent on the cargo of canned goods. On a cargo of flour from Boston, 7,000 barrels, we made a profit of 200 per cent, the flour selling for £4 sterling the barrel. This flour had been shipped to us through John M. Forbes, of Boston, for Philo Shelton and Moses Taylor, the millionaire of New York.

When I returned to New York in '57, during the panic, I met Taylor in Wall Street. He must have been in terrible need of money to keep his head above water, and he at once said to me: "Why did you charge me 7 ½ per cent commission for handling that cargo of flour in Melbourne?" I looked at him in astonishment. He had forgotten the enormous profit he had made on the shipment, and remembered now only the small matter of the commission he had been compelled to pay.

I replied that the commission was our usual charge. He told me he was buying up his own paper in the street, and was not in temporary distress. "I do not think you should have charged me more than 5 per cent commission," he said. I was disgusted at this view of a transaction that had brought him in a profit that would have been considered marvelous even by a usurer. "All right," I said, "I will give you the difference now." And I gave him a check for $2,500.

I met a large number of actors and actresses in Melbourne, for it was quite the custom as early as that for stars of the stage, whether tragedians like Edwin Booth, or dancers like Lola Montez, to make a tour of the world and take in Australia on the circuit. I was astonished to meet Booth and Laura Keene, "stranded," one day, although they had made a successful tour in England. They did not appeal to the rough audiences of Australia, and so did not have enough money to take them back to the States. It so happened that I had just bought the City of Norfolk to send to San Francisco as the pioneer of a new line, which is now thoroughly established, and making rapid passages between the two ports. I gave them free passage to San Francisco. Laura Keene frequently mentioned the fact in "asides" on the stage, but I never received a word of thanks or appreciation from Booth. Kate Hayes and Bushnell also visited Australia while I was there, and I gave them a concert and started them off on their tour.

But the greatest sensation that was created in the theatrical world of Australia during my stay was made by Lola Montez, the dancer from Madrid. She danced and pirouetted on the necks and hearts of men. The rough mining element went wild over her, and she had the wealth and rank of Melbourne at her feet. One morning she burst into my office, and called out in her quaint accent, "Is Mr. George Francis Train here? Tell him that I am his old friend from Boston, and that I have just arrived from San Francisco." She had called to make a complaint against the captain of our ship, whom she wanted us to discharge for some supposed discourtesy to her. We patched up this quarrel, and I did everything I could to insure her a successful season in Melbourne. She had a tremendous vogue, and danced before crowded houses.

One night I called at the green-room of the theater to see her, sending in my card. I had seated myself on the sofa to wait until she finished her dancing. Suddenly the door flew open, and in rushed something that looked like a great ball of feathers. This ball flew toward me and I was enveloped in a cloud of lace! The bold little dancer had thrown her foot over my head!

My life in Australia, now drawing to a close, as I had made arrangements for leaving there to continue my business operations in Japan, had been very charming and profitable. Everything was novel and strange to me, and it all made a deep and lasting impression upon my mind, which was then eagerly receptive.

I find, in recalling these impressions, that my first idea of Australia still remains the most prominent one left in my memory. Australia was truly the antipodes. Everything seemed to be reversed, a topsy-turvy land. At Botany Bay I was astonished to find the swans were black, thereby demolishing our beautiful ideas about "milk-white" swans. The birds talked, screamed, or brayed, instead of singing, and the trees shed their bark instead of their leaves. The big end of the pears was at the stem, and cherry-stones grew on the outside of the fruit. I was sitting one day in the garden of the governor-general when I thought I felt some one tap me on the shoulder. Then my coat was wrenched off my back, and I turned just in time to see it disappear down the throat of a tame Australian ostrich, called an emu. The bird had taken me for a vegetable.

Sidney Smith describes the kangaroo as an animal with the head of a rabbit, the body of a deer, a tail like a bed-post, and which, when in danger, puts its young into a pocket in its stomach. But the most marvelous of all the queer things of Australia, to my mind, was the animal that laid eggs like a hen, suckled its young like a goat, and was web-footed, like a duck. This was the duckbill, or water-mole, which the Australians called the Patybus.

I also saw in Tasmania, and on Flinder's Island, the race of men that was then considered the most remarkable on the globe, the original Tasmanian savages; and I saw, also, the most curious weapon that man has ever invented, the boomerang. Holmes has described this weapon in one of his humorous verses:

I got one of the Bushmen to throw his boomerang for me. He threw it around a tree and the missile came back toward us. I fully expected to be sent sprawling. It dropped almost at the feet of the savage that threw it. Even gold in that land is found where it all ends in our country—in pockets!

Before closing the account of my Australian experiences, I want to record that when I arrived in Melbourne that flourishing port was in a horrible condition for a city of its size and importance. Its streets were such as would not have been tolerated in an American city of half its size or one tenth its wealth. There were practically no public works. After I had been there for some little time, a plan was put on foot to improve the city. It moved along very slowly, as no one seemed to know exactly what to do, or how to do it. Finally, an elaborate program was drawn up, and all that was needed to carry it out was the money, which would have to be borrowed.

The chairman of the improvement committee, or whatever it was called, came to see me to get me to undertake the floating of the necessary loan. I suggested a number of improvements, such as fire-engines, better office buildings, better paved streets, and new gas-works. All of these suggestions were accepted, and I forecast the floating of the loan. They got the money in London, and Melbourne was remodeled, so far as its appearance was concerned, and was finally made one of the most attractive cities in the British colonies. It now has a population of half a million.

CHAPTER XIII

Of course, my first thought was for the up-building of our house. I wanted it to take the leading part in the stupendous task, and to become the first house of the world. All this could have been accomplished, except that I had to contend against the conservatism of New England, and the very easily understood desire of Colonel Train that his house should directly own all its ships. This was, of course, impossible. He could not own them, but he might control them. I urged upon him the policy of retaining a controlling interest only, and letting others come in, bringing the capital we should need for the greater enterprise. This was my idea of "combination," of a great "shipping combine," more than half a century before it was undertaken, in another way, by Mr. Morgan and his associates.

Colonel Train's persistent demand that he should own all the ships, put an end to the plan. It not only put an end to a grand project, but put an end to his business. He was soon confronted with difficulties. The business had outgrown him and his limited means, had become unwieldy and unmanageable. As I had foreseen, it needed more men, more minds, more money; and these were not forthcoming. And so, in '57, Colonel Train was forced down, literally crushed beneath the weight of his own undertakings, as Tarpeia was crushed beneath the Sabine shields. He was the victim of his desire to own and dominate everything.

Two years before this collapse of a great idea, I left Australia for Japan, by way of Java, Singapore, and China, with high hopes. I had visions, which were to accompany me for a year or two more, and then I had to abandon them and turn my attention to other fields. From Melbourne, I sailed on the Dashing Wave. Has it ever occurred to any one who writes or thinks of the old days of sailing vessels, those winged ships, that the very names of boats have changed, indicating the transformation from romance to reality, from poetry to mere prose and work-a-day business? In those days we had beautiful and suggestive names for ships, just as we ought to try to find beautiful and suggestive names for all truly beautiful and lovable things. Now we send out our City of Paris, or St. Louis, or St. Paul, or the Minneapolis, or the Astoria, or Kentucky, or Blaamanden, or Rotterdam, or Ryndam, or Noordam. Then we had such names as Flying Cloud, the clipper that shortened the distance between the ends of the world; the Sovereign of the Seas, the Monarch of the Ocean, the Flying Arrow, the Sea Eagle. The Dashing Wave, Captain Fiske, carried me to Batavia in twenty-six days. We were accompanied, for a portion of the trip, by the Flying Arrow.

At Anjer, in the Straits of Sunda, the Malays came off to the ship in their little boats with provisions of all sorts to sell. Every one of them had letters of recommendation, as they thought, from the English captains and officers who had previously traded with them; but these letters, if they could have been translated for their possessors, would have been instantly cast into the sea and a general riot perhaps would have followed. One of the letters read something like this: "If this black thief brings any eggs to sell to you, don't buy them, as they are always rotten. He may also try to sell you a rooster, but don't buy it, as it is the same cock that crew when Peter denied Jesus." Of course everybody on the ship roared with laughter as each letter was handed up to us and read aloud for the edification of all. The simple Malays guffawed loudly in their boats, thinking that we were heartily pleased with them and their wares. When next I passed through the Sunda Straits, Krakatoa had been at work in eruption and had completely changed the face of the coast, and Anjer itself and the little island it stood on were gone.

This Dutch colony was a revelation to me in every way. I had never seen anything at all like it in any other part of the world, and was never again to see anything quite so quaint or so delightful. The ride from Batavia to the hotel was full of surprises. I was accompanied by a troop of little children, all of them pressing close up to us and crying for "doits"—small copper coins. I scattered these little coins among them again and again, but they could never get enough, but kept on crying, "doit, doit!" Then the color of the trees, the rich shades of the flowers that flourished everywhere, the beauty of the scenery—all was a delightful surprise. I have never seen elsewhere so many or such rare flowers. The whole island of Java, as I was soon to learn, is a vast botanical garden, far more beautiful and rare than any that science can create. Nature, the great horticulturist, has here done her best and final work. The air, too, was delicious. It was perfumed by flowers, aromatic herbs, and spices. I had never realized before what was meant by the legends of the "Spice Islands," and I fancied that here was the place for man to live and die.

I drove to the residence of the governor-general at Buitenzorg, thirty-five miles south of Batavia, which was situated in a tremendous garden of flowers and trees. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, and I am quite sure that I have never seen anything more beautiful since. I was so delighted with Java, indeed, that I had a model of a Javanese village made for me, and shipped it home to my wife with the greatest care. What was my surprise, when I finally reached home, and asked eagerly if the model had been received, to be told that nothing had been seen of it. "Didn't something come from me from Java?" Oh, yes, something had come, but it looked so big and uninteresting that it had been put down in the cellar. And there my beautiful model of the Javanese village had lain, in ignominy, for years! I restored it to its proper position in the world, by sending it to the Boston Museum. It was lost in the fire that soon afterward destroyed that building.

It was in Java that I first learned to love flowers, and I have loved them more and more every year of my life since. The natives of that wonderful island love to strew flowers over everything, and to garland everything with beautiful blossoms. I soon became infatuated with the custom of carrying flowers, and adopted the boutonnière, which I afterward introduced in Paris in '56, in London in '57, and in New York in '58. I have endeavored to wear a spray of flowers in the lapel of my coat every day since my visit to Java.

There was one particularly pleasing custom, which I think should have been long ago introduced in this country. This was the fashion of bringing in fruit to the table covered with flowers. It is a custom that delights three senses at once—the smell, the sight, the taste. The first time I saw it was at the table of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, when he gave a dinner to me and my friends. After we had finished eating, I was asked if I did not wish for some of the fruit. I looked around and could not see fruit anywhere. In front of me were great masses of flowers in baskets, and I could readily detect the odor of fruits of various kinds, but they were invisible. I had almost decided that they were outside in the garden, and that possibly we were expected to pluck them from the trees, which, heavily laden with their burdens, hung temptingly against the windows. But no, the fruit was immediately before me, hidden beneath masses of cut flowers, in trays and baskets. I thought it a beautiful custom, and one that distinctly appeals to esthetic taste. It could well be introduced at Newport or Saratoga, or in Fifth Avenue mansions.

I regretted that Great Britain had lost, through a piece of carelessness, these magnificent islands now controlled by Holland; although the Dutch have done about as well as any other people could have done, I suppose. I believe it was because Lord Canning did not open his eastern mail one morning, that these islands became a possession of Holland instead of Great Britain.

I did not, on the occasion of my first visit, see anything of the Achinese. But I passed, in '92, on my last trip around the world, the northwestern end of Sumatra, and Captain Hogg, of the Moyune, pointed to the little town of Achin, built on piles. He said that in the interior the Dutch were still fighting the Achinese. They had then been fighting these desperate Mohammedans—converted Malays—for thirty years. I have since thought, having in view this prolonged struggle for freedom of the Mohammedan Malays of Sumatra, how desperate is our undertaking in the Philippines, where we are trying to subjugate a far larger population of Mohammedans, the Moros of the southern islands of the archipelago. Holland, I believe, has spent already something like 500,000,000 florins to exterminate the Achinese. It may cost us far more to exterminate the Moros.

I left Batavia for Singapore on a Dutch man-of-war, Captain Fabius. We stopped first at the island of Banka, belonging to Holland, and I saw there the famous tin-mines, which are greater than those of Cornwall, England. They were the property of the brother of the King of Holland. We did not stop at Sarawak, because of the little war that "Rajah" Brooke, afterward known as Sarawak Brooke, was carrying on there. We arrived at Singapore just too late to meet Townsend Harris, the first American diplomatic representative to Japan, as he had gone up to Siam. Harris's visit to Japan was the real beginning of a new era in the trade of the far East, and no other diplomatic mission in the history of this country has been fraught with greater results.

Singapore was then a port of much dirtiness and much business. All the vessels of the world came there, and the greatest variety of cargoes that I have ever seen. The most interesting thing I saw there was the magnificent home of a great Chinese millionaire, who managed the largest business in Singapore, or, indeed, in that part of the world. He had a splendid palace, surrounded by beautiful and extensive gardens, the whole being worthy of a king or emperor. Here he lived in the style of some barbaric prince. This Chinaman had established in Singapore the kind of store which we in America think we invented—the department store. But I learned afterward when I went to China, that the department store is common there, and had been known for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. This development of the store is as old as the civilization of the Caucasian race, and, perhaps, was known to China ages before America was discovered. I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to visit the Chinaman in his palace, and was astounded by the extensive grandeur of everything. He had a passion for animals, and owned two tigers in cages that were the largest animals of their kind I have ever seen.

From Singapore, I sailed for China on a P. & O. steamer. On board I met Dr. Parker, the new American minister to China, and my roommate was Alexander Collie, of Manchester, England, who, during our civil war, became the chief English blockade runner. I may as well dispose of my experiences with Collie while I have him before me. Collie operated his blockade-running business through the London and Westminster (Limited) Bank. When I was in England I discovered the nature of his work, and exposed him through correspondence in the New York Herald. This led to the breaking down of his enterprise, and to the bank's loss of £500,000 sterling. Collie escaped arrest by fleeing to Spain. I have never heard of him since.

CHAPTER XIV

The pirates expected that we should fall an easy prey into their hands, as our coal had given out, and there was no assistance within reach. We were in a dilemma, but we attacked the woodwork of the deck, and got enough to fire up the engines and get a head of steam, when suddenly, to the amazement of the pirates, we steamed out and away. The storm having subsided, the junks were soon left far behind and we reached Macao safely.

Macao was at that time the headquarters of the new slave trade. I went to the top of a high hill for the purpose of looking at the barracoons, where slaves were kept. The barracoon is, in meaning, a little barrack, but it is, in reality, a pest-hole. Here were gathered the Chinese who were to be sent as victims and slaves to the Peruvian islands. The practise was to bring Chinamen from the interior by telling them of the great riches their countrymen had found in America, which was then a name that tempted all Chinamen of the coast regions. Many Chinamen, it was known, had gone to America and done well, and the wretches that the slave-dealers wanted to ship to Peru were told that they would be sent to America. They thought they were going to California; but they were shipped to the Chincha islands, near Callao, the port of Lima, Peru.

As Boston was then deeply interested in the subject of slavery in the Southern States, I wrote a description of this new slavery in the Chincha islands, giving the names of the boats that had recently sailed from Macao with full cargoes of slaves. I had heard of this horrible traffic in human flesh at Singapore, but could not believe it, until I actually saw it at Macao. Whenever the wretches mutinied, or grew restive, they were put down in the hold and the hatches closed. The horrors of such a position were as great as those of the infamous "Middle Passage," made so conspicuous by the abolitionists in the campaign against African slavery. Chinamen perished by hundreds, and many of the survivors were maimed or invalided for life. In a single case, some two hundred victims were smothered and died in the hold of one of these slavers. My letters to the New York Herald were copied far and near. It was discovered that some of the Boston people themselves were interested in enslaving the Chinese. But the practise could not stand the light of exposure, and so was broken up.

We hurried on from Macao to Canton, arriving there during the Chinese New Year. This city astonished me in a number of ways. It was dirty and miserable beyond imagination, with narrow streets and indescribable filth. But that it carried on a tremendous volume of trade was apparent from a glance. The river was covered with junks and larger vessels at Whampoa, the lower port, floating the flags of every nation. Warehouses, the "godowns" of the foreign traders, revealed the existence of an enormous, and profitable commerce. The word "godown," which many take to be a "pidgin-English" word composed of "go" and "down," and signifying putting things down in a warehouse, is a Malay word, and comes from "gadang," meaning a place for storing articles away. The warehouses were surrounded by high walls, in the manner of private villas and town residences of the Chinese, and were adorned by beautiful gardens.

There was a pretty custom, among foreign residents, to invite all visitors to dine with them. These invitations were sent informally upon little cards called "chits." As I was already known in the business world there, I received a great many of these invitations. I was walking with Mr. Green one day, when he said it was getting time to think about dinner. "Where will you dine?" he asked. I replied that I did not know which invitation to accept. I thought that I would take some of his conceit out of him, by showing him that I had received a great number of "chits," and I drew a package of them from my pocket. I remarked coolly that I could not make up my mind what to do, as I had an embarras de richesses. I counted the "chits," and there were eleven. Green, with great nonchalance, drew out his package of "chits"; he had thirteen!

He had a great way of taking care of himself in such circumstances. He suggested that there was only one thing to do—to find out who, among our intending hosts, would have the best dinner. He then took me around to the rear of the residences, where a high wall separated the gardens from the native city, and where I discovered that the Chinese cooks always hung up the game, poultry, and other things they were preparing for meals. From this array we could tell what everybody was going to have for dinner. After a stroll through the alley, we selected the house that had displayed behind it some lovely pheasants and salmon. "The owner of that house shall have the honor of being our host," said Green. I approved his choice both then and after the dinner, which was an excellent one, at which the golden pheasants were the pièce de résistance. I soon discovered for myself, what I had long heard, that the Chinese are the best cooks in the world.

Another thing I learned about the Chinaman was that he is the most honest tradesman in the world, and the most careful about debts. The Chinese New Year is the season when the Chinaman wipes off the slate and begins life over again, with a clean record. He pays up all debts, and starts even with the world. I learned that on this anniversary the Chinaman will sell everything he possesses, even his liberty, his person, his life itself, to settle his debts, so that he may face the new year with a clean conscience and a pure heart, as well as with no bills hanging over him.

As this was practically the first Chinese city I had seen, I was very curious about it. It was all new ground to me, and I was eager to explore it. I knew that this was not permitted, for six Englishmen had been killed shortly before my arrival, for daring to venture inside the walls of the Chinese city, which was then as much forbidden ground as the "Pink City" of Pekin. The fate of the Englishmen only made me more keen to get inside the walls. I thought I could take care of myself sufficiently well. I was warned by friends not to risk the thing, but I took all the responsibility, and went inside, while the gates were open. I had not gone more than a few rods when I heard behind me and all around me the wildest cries. Men ran toward me with shouts of "Fankwai"—foreign devil; and I saw at once that I had stirred up a hornet's nest. I looked about me, and discovered that the gate I had come through was still open. There was a pretty fair chance, by running fast, for getting through it before the Chinamen could head me off. This calculation took about one-millionth of a second, and I plunged for the gate, "like a pawing horse let go." If the stop-watch could have been held on me, I am sure I should have established a record for a short-distance sprint.

The next time I visited Canton was in '70. The gates were open, and the walls were of no avail to keep the foreign devils out. The American merchant Nye, who was familiarly known as the Napoleon of China, because of his gigantic enterprises, took me over the city. I had read and heard about Chinamen eating rats, but this was the only time I ever saw the thing done, and I could hardly believe my eyes. A Chinaman came up to Mr. Nye and me in the street, and offered to sell us a rat, a big fellow still alive. I asked if it was to be eaten, and the Chinaman said it was. "But it is not cooked," I objected. "I am not going to begin on live rats." The Chinaman said he would prepare it—the rat cooked and served to cost me two cents. I told him to go ahead. To my surprise he took a little stove from under his arm, lighted a fire, and in a few minutes had the rodent roasted to a crisp. I was astonished—and ashamed—to see how nice it looked. It did appear toothsome. I said to the Chinaman, "Now, you can eat it." He did, and with great gusto and smacking of the lips. So he got his rat and my two cents, also.

But I ascertained that there is about as much truth in the common stories in our silly juvenile literature about Chinamen generally eating rats as there is in stories of other marvelous things in far-off lands. I also found that there is no deadly upas-tree in Java, which was a distinct shock to me. I had been reared, so to speak, in the fatal shade of that upas. I had watched birds drop dead as they tried to fly across its swath of malignant shadow; I had seen animals stricken by its fatal exudations and writhing in agony. I saw all these things in the old New England farmhouse, which was the headquarters of the Methodists; but in Java, they had all disappeared. There was no upas-tree, and the mortality among birds and animals was no greater than necessary to satisfy the predatory natures of other animals, birds, and men. And now to find in China that the New England stories about general rat-eating were false, was another shock.

But the Chinese are not as cleanly as they might be. I learned this interesting fact in connection with my taste for Canton ginger. I had always, from earliest childhood, been outrageously fond of this delicate comfit. I had eaten it in great quantities whenever I got the chance; and when I arrived in Canton, the home of this conserve, I at once thought of it, and wanted to know more about its manufacture. I learned, after some inquiry, that it was put up at a factory on the island of Ho-nan, near Canton. Ho-nan is also the name of a famous Buddhist temple on the same island. The factory, as well as most of the so-called island, is built on piles. I had not altogether overlooked this fact when I asked the factory people where they got the water for the sirup of the preserves. They looked at me as if I were demented. "Water! why we are right over the river!" Yes, they were right over the river, the dirtiest and most villainous river in the world. The sewage of the dirtiest city in China—which is saying about all that can be said on the subject—is emptied into this river. I need not say that I did not eat any of the Canton ginger then, and I have not eaten any of it since.

I have set down my views as to the topsy-turviness of things in Australia. I found China topsy-turvy in a different way. The Chinese begin their books and letters where we end ours, at what we should call the back. They read from right to left, instead of from left to right, and, strangest of all, the men wear gowns, and the women—don't! When I was introduced to How-kwa, a warm friend of the Russells, I advanced to shake hands with him, but he stepped back and solemnly shook hands with himself for me. Then he waved his hands toward the door, as if to say, so it seemed to me, "get out of here," and I was amazed, but Sturgis informed me that the great Chinaman was merely beckoning to me to come nearer to him. I went up to him, by that time so impressed with the Chinese way of doing things backward that if he had kicked at me, I should have thought he was asking me to embrace him. We were in How-kwa's residence, which was surrounded by the most exquisite gardens, and were invited to partake of a cup of tea. For the first time in my life I drank tea that cost $30 a pound. We used no sugar nor milk, of course, as these things are considered in China to spoil good tea. The next best tea I have drunk, I think, was the tea I got at the fair of Nijnii Novgorod, Russia, in '57, which had been brought overland thousands of miles across mountains and deserts, packed in little bricks.

Again, I found that the Chinese look backward, and not forward, and ennoble their ancestors, instead of their offspring, and pay little attention to the coming generation. They say that they know what their ancestors—the dead—were, but can not foretell what the living may become. They scull their boats in the rivers from the bow, instead of from the stern. Their boatmen are usually women. While we fear the water, and seek to make our dwelling places upon the rock or upon very dry land, the Chinaman will get as near as possible to the water. In the Canton, or Pearl, river there were, when I was there, some 100,000 persons living on the river, in boats, or on floats, or rafts. A Westerner would suppose children were in danger of falling into the water. They do fall in, but their mothers have devised a method of rescuing them without mischance. Cords are fastened to their bodies, and when a child falls overboard, the cord, which is made fast to the boat, prevents it from sinking too far before the mother or father catches hold and pulls it back into the boat.

They call all servants, male and female, "boy," which reminds me that in the Europeanized parts of some of the Japanese cities they do the same, and when they want to specify definitely that the "boy" is a girl, they say "onna no boy," which means "girl-boy," or girl servant. This is, of course, pidgin-English, the business English of the Chinese littoral. I had an amusing experience with this pidgin-English. I had invited some friends to dine with me, a merchant and his two sons and three daughters, and when I asked the servant who had come, he said that the merchant had arrived and "two bull chilo, and three cow chilo."

Pidgin-English amused me very much, as it amuses every one who visits China. Augustine Heard, the merchant, who was a master of this lingo, used to interest me by reciting phrases from it, and once gave me the following poem, which is a translation of Longfellow's Excelsior. The translation was made by Mr. Heard. It has been published throughout the world as an "anonymous" production:

When I was ready to start for Japan, I had made up my mind to visit Shanghai on the way, and was about to start, when Canton merchants, native and foreign, tried to dissuade me. They told me it would be terribly disappointing, and that I would regret wasting any time there. They did not know my nature, and that this sort of thing merely stimulated my curiosity and hardened my determination.

I took passage in the P. & O. boat, the Erin, Captain Jameson, and supposed, of course, that I should have a state-room. But I was to meet with another Chinese surprise. A great Chinese mandarin, going from Hongkong to Shanghai, had engaged the whole cabin. I was very desirous to see this great personage, and soon had the opportunity. It is my practise, when at sea, to take exercise by walking rapidly up and down the deck, thus covering many miles a day. I was taking my daily exercise the day when the mandarin came on board ship, and every time I passed the cabin I noticed that he followed me with his eyes. And so we kept it up for some time, I walking as unconcernedly as I could, and the great mandarin watching my movements as curiously as if I were some strange animal.

After a while he called the first officer, and asked what I was doing. "Walking up and down the deck," he was told. "But why does he do it? Is he paid for it?" The officer told him it was for exercise. "What is that?" asked the Chinese great man. This was explained to him, but he could not understand why any one wanted to walk up and down, and do so much unnecessary work. The Chinese are not averse to work; indeed, they are one of the most industrious people on the face of the earth, but they do not do unnecessary work, having, I infer, to do as much necessary work as is good for them. And this great dignitary pointed to me with scorn and said: "Number one foolo." I hardly need explain that "number one," throughout the far East, means the superlative degree.

This mandarin was the great Li Hung Chang, who had been summoned by his emperor to save the country from the terrible Tai-ping rebellion. He was on his way from Canton to Shanghai. He there called in the splendid services of three great foreigners—the Frenchman, Bougevine, the American, Ward, and the Englishman, "Chinese" Gordon; but it was largely and chiefly due to the stubbornness and genius of Li that the empire was saved to the Manchus, at a cost, it is estimated, of twenty millions of lives.

When we reached Woosung there were six armed opium ships for cargoes of opium from Calcutta and Bombay, which the English were forcing upon the Chinese, much as we should force rum on the Mexicans, and make them pay for it. The English and Americans were reaping fortunes in the most unholy traffic the world has seen—and it will never be forgotten in China, or anywhere else, that England went to war with China to force China to permit the shipment of opium into that country to ruin millions of lives and impoverish millions of families. I feel heartily ashamed of myself for having once smuggled a little of this horrible drug into China. But I found that many Americans and Englishmen were devoting themselves to the trade as a regular business.

In Shanghai I was the guest of Russell & Co., who were then represented by Cunningham and G. Griswold Gray. The fighting in the great rebellion was still raging—it was not put down until after Gordon recaptured Nanking—and when I was in Shanghai the Chinese authorities kept the gory heads of rebels hanging from the walls as an example to all who contemplated opposing the Manchu rule. These hideous trophies of the war were the most impressive things that I saw in Shanghai.

Dr. Lockhart, the missionary, acted voluntarily as my dragoman and guide in Shanghai, and showed me things in the city that I could never have discovered for myself. In one of the squares I noticed a monument 150 feet high, which, I was told by Lockhart, had been built by the poor people of China in commemoration of an old lady, who had been the Helen Gould of her day. Each of the subscribers had contributed cash equal to one tenth of a cent.

Some really splendid virtues of the Chinese impressed me deeply. I liked and admired them the more I saw them. I have already said that they are the most honest people on the globe. It seems to me an extraordinary thing that this race, the world's highest type of honesty, should be the only race to which we are inhospitable. The Chinese were far ahead of Europeans in many ways for centuries. If they have fallen behind now, it may be only because Europeans are rushing hastily through their brief civilizations, while China, having enjoyed hers for ages, is content to watch us rise, flourish, and decay, as we watch the passing generations of the forest and the field.

They invented and used the things that we regard as almost the highest products of our civilization. They had used the mariner's compass for centuries before we had it; they invented printing perhaps a thousand years before Gutenberg; they invented gunpowder, which they had used in war and every-day life; they had the best paper ever seen long before the rest of the world had any, and the outside nations have not yet been able to duplicate theirs; they invented the newspaper, and have the oldest journal in the world, the Pekin Gazette; they discovered the Golden Rule, unless that honor belongs to the Greek, Thales; they developed philosophy—the highest system of the world, in Confucianism—before the Greeks, and, of course, long before the Germans; and they were the first people of the world to appreciate education.

Moreover, as Mr. Wu, the great Chinese minister at Washington, has so often pointed out, they were democratic long before Thomas Jefferson, and long before the Greeks had invented the word "democracy," or had discovered the idea of a democratic state or city. I had been taught that the hard-headed and practical Scotch had invented the macadam road, naming it from a canny Scot of that name; but I found a macadamized road in China three or four thousand years old, and long enough to wrap around the British Isles. The Chinese have long preceded us, and they may long survive us, nullifying all the "imperialism" and "expansionism" of Europe and America, which would cut her into fragments as the spoil of the world.

While I was in China, on this first visit, and on the several occasions of my later visits, I gave much thought to the vast population of that country. I have come to the conclusion that the population is less than half, probably less than one-third, of what it is generally estimated to be. I notice that the Chinese viceroys have recently made an estimate of their respective provinces, at the command of the emperor, and that the total reaches the enormous figure of 425,000,000. I do not believe that there are 200,000,000 people in the entire empire, and I should prefer estimating the population at something between 150,000,000 and 175,000,000.

I found that China is not a densely populated country, as is generally supposed. The seashore is fairly crowded, and the impression one gets from seeing the surface of the water covered at Canton with rafts and floats on which more than 100,000 persons live, is that the inhabitants must swarm in the same degree over the face of the land. This is not the case. Even the coast is merely fringed with people. Back in the interior there are no such dense masses of population. All accounts that I can read of the interior, from Father Huc down to Mr. Parsons of New York, bear me out in this. I can not see where there are more than 175,000,000, or 150,000,000, people in that empire. The reports of the slaughter in the Tai-ping rebellion, of some 20,000,000 people, would seem to indicate a population of at least 200,000,000 or 250,000,000; but these figures were greatly exaggerated, as all such things are in China. All statistics are nothing but guesswork, and the bigger they are the better people like them.

I engaged passage in the Greta, which was to go to Shimoda and Hakodate, Japan. My objective point was Yokohama, where it was my purpose to establish a branch of the house of Train & Co., Melbourne. My Australian house was not connected with Colonel Train's Boston and Liverpool packet firm. At this time, however, the English and Russians, who were not as good friends then as they are now, were fighting, and the little war completely upset all of my plans. I could not get to Yokohama at all, and did not visit Japan until several years later. I had, therefore, to give up my passage in the Greta, and turn my face from Japan. Just at this point, Augustine Heard invited G. Griswold Gray, of Russell & Co., and me to go to Fu-chow, on one of his sailing ships, the John Wade.