As it is, the way in which missionaries and merchants eye each other askance is often very painful. As to the differences between the sects, I think these are as much and as needlessly exaggerated as those between different kinds of Chinese. Chinese converts must be further advanced in Christianity than is often the case now to be able to appreciate the difference even between Roman Catholicism and Congregationalism. They see there is a difference in ceremonial. But to that Chinese are much too wise to attach much importance. They fancy all are "good talkees" of different kinds. And are they far wrong? The sincerer the Christian the less importance he always seems to attach to differences of belief and form.

It is sad to reflect that had there not been such fierce rivalries between the cardinals in the thirteenth century, and a consequent Papal interregnum of three years, Kublai Khan's request to the two brothers Polo would have probably been acceded to, and the Chinese become Christians then en masse, after the fashion of the kindred Russian race. Kublai Khan had "begged the Pope would send as many as one hundred persons of our Christian faith; intelligent men, acquainted with the Seven Arts, well qualified to enter into controversy, and able clearly to prove by force of argument to idolaters and other kinds of folk, that the law of Christ was best, and that all other religions were false and naught, and that if they would prove this, he and all under him would become Christians and the Church's liegemen. Finally, he charged his envoys to bring back to him some of the oil of the Lamp which burns on the sepulchre of our Lord at Jerusalem." There is a miniature of the fourteenth century of the great Khan delivering a golden tablet to the brothers. They started for Rome on this mission with a Tartar Baron, but he fell sick and went back. They were three years upon the journey, then delayed, waiting till a Pope, Gregory of Piacenza, was at last appointed. He sent two learned Dominicans with them—two instead of a hundred—and these two friars were terrified by a Saracen outbreak, and turned back in their turn. Again, in the eighteenth century the Chinese would, it seems, have become Christians, but that the Dominicans then came and opposed the Jesuits, who had effected an entrance in 1580, and had gained great influence over the Emperor and the nation. The Dominicans and Franciscans condemned the Jesuit toleration of ancestral worship, and for the second time China was thrown back. The Emperor and his advisers were considering whether Christianity should not be proclaimed the religion of the country, when the coup d'état came. Those of the reformers who have survived, and the Emperor Kwang-shü through them, have thus for the third time been holding out asking hands to Christendom.

In all these cases it has been European enlightenment, as embodied in Christianity, that the Chinese through their Emperors have asked for. But already we hear of governors and high officials actually becoming Christians themselves individually. Up till now none had certainly joined the Protestant Church, and I think none had been baptised into the Roman Catholic Church, for I have always understood in China it was doubted whether a man could become a Christian and retain official place.

China has appealed to Christendom for the third time. May it not be in vain! Of all means for helping her, the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge seems the most useful at the present juncture, and £20 would bring a new city under its influence, while £200 would enable this Society to permeate a whole new province with its revivifying literature.

CHAPTER XIII.
UP-COUNTRY SHOPPING AND UP-COUNTRY WAYS.

Before Chinese New Year bargains are to be picked up—in Shanghai lovely embroidered satins, exquisite transparent tortoiseshell boxes, or china of the Ming period. Up-country our buyings are of a different order—a tiger-skin thirteen feet from head to tail, with grand markings, though of course not so thick a fur as is to be had at Newchwang. Head and tail and claws are all intact; and the man who brings it exhibits also its terrible jaws, and points to the holes where the spear entered before the man conquered the tiger. We have besides stone slabs, with the shells of the orthoceras embedded in them, sawn asunder and polished for screens or table-tops. What that most remarkable animal did, with a shell like the horn of an unicorn, not uncommonly over two feet long, and beautifully convoluted, it is hard to think. These pagoda-stones, as they are called, arrive in mass, all to realise money for New Year's debts.

Rocks of various kinds are the special product of the Ichang district, where we could supply all the rockeries of Shanghai with disintegrated conglomerate. Only, unfortunately, at this season fern-stones are not in sufficient beauty to play the part of the Irish pig, and help to pay the rent. But one day an eagle was shown into the drawing-room in splendid condition, with grand yellow beak, and beautiful brown eyes, and neck of blended tints of brown and bronze. The poor creature's feet were tightly tied together; but even as it was, we were careful about admiring its beauties too closely. Eight hundred cash was all that was even asked by its captor, who eventually is said to have parted with the beautiful bird for five hundred cash, or one shilling.

A curious little animal with beautiful long-nailed feet and tiny tail, and a fur so exquisitely thick and soft and feathery one quite longed for a collar of it, had not such luck as the eagle, and died before arriving here; but of these various luxuries—for none of these can quite be reckoned among the necessaries of life—it is a little difficult to choose on which to spend one's spare cash. The fur-shops close before the New Year, which is the more to be regretted as they offer the most fascinating footstool covers—intended for the seats of roomy Chinese chairs—made out of two heads of what are called seven-months' tigers, a thick fur of drab colour with an admixture of rich brown.

Oranges are what colour the scene,—mandarin oranges, of delicious flavour and thinnest possible skin; and other oranges, slightly indented at either end, and of a flavour peculiar to the district, and highly appreciated. But an attempt to examine the orange-market soon roused a row, when mud and brickbats flew through the air, so well hurled by some of the Hunan boatmen as to raise a lump like an egg on the skull of one of the party before we fairly got away, with our hats knocked over our eyes, and generally somewhat soiled. This stoning experience becomes a little monotonous. I have had hot things thrown at me in Hankow, hot things and stones in Itu, bricks and earth in Ichang, and since then so many things in so many less well-known places. There is a certain amount of excitement attached to it at first; but the most passionate lover of excitement could buy it more pleasurably otherwise. The people you look at always run away, if you look firmly enough; but then those from behind come on, and the men on the outskirts of the throng take the opportunity to throw things under cover of the others. After all, the shrieking and shouting they keep up is about the worst part of the proceeding, making one feel like a mad dog. And to walk through the narrow streets of a Chinese town in that character is not the pleasantest possible experience. We enjoyed it to perfection at Itu, where the people consider they have conquered the English; for a missionary, having taken a house there, was not only persuaded by the British Consul into giving up the house, the owner of which had as usual in such cases been thrown into prison, but had even to pay something himself, instead of having compensation given to him.

Had it not been for the uproarious chorus of "Slay the foreigner!" the tune to which we habitually walked about in remote parts of Hupeh Province, the shops of Itu looked rather inviting. There were beautiful sheep-skins in great profusion; and even in passing I was struck by the delicate beauty of some of the fox-skins. Women's embroidered petticoats were also hanging up for sale; but this was probably a bad New Year's sign. In one of the temples at Itu report says there is an inscription in European characters; but the hooting crowd did not predispose us to research, the less so as over all down fell the silent snow, in the midst of which stalked the most formidable beggar I have ever yet seen, stripped to the waist, covered with skin disease, his face plastered with mud of a livid green hue, his hair wild, and his eyes fierce and shining.

How comfortable the familiar house-boat looks, after one of these raids upon the shore, with luncheon on the table, and the armchairs all equally inviting! But we were stoned at Ichang with no pleasant house-boat to make tracks to; and, what is worse, one of the party wounded, which was a bad precedent, to say the least of it. And we were met by a French gentleman, who said, "I was stoned for a whole quarter of an hour yesterday." It seemed to him, as it did to us, that these little breaches of the peace, acquiesced in, might easily lead to serious consequences. The cry of "Slay the foreigner!" was a novelty that year. It has become very common since then.

But even without stoning, what a business it is shopping in a Chinese city! If you go to a shop, and begin looking at things and asking prices as you might in Europe, all the rabble of the street pours in after you. You cannot make yourself heard, you cannot breathe, you cannot see for the crowd, till the poor shopkeeper by his imploring gestures at last succeeds in making you go away before his shop is sacked, or at least half the things in it broken. The proper way is to send to the shop. Then a young shopman comes, very chirpy and self-satisfied, with a quantity of goods, but very likely nothing that you quite fancy. Then he asks you to tell him what you want exactly. Do you want brocade, or—or——Here follow names of silks you never heard of, and never consciously saw. Do you want to make yourself a skirt or a jacket? What!—neither! And do you not want a whole piece of the silk either? He packs up his goods and goes off. Then you decide to do the next most right thing—are carried to his shop in a sedan-chair, plumped down at the door of it, and glide into it and through into the sitting-room behind with wonderful celerity. The troubled shopkeeper bars one or two gates behind you, and the curious crowd is shut out. You sit down in peace, among round wooden columns, upon one of the straight-backed chairs beside a little black table. All is tranquil. Tea is brought. A pipe is offered. No one is in a hurry to serve you. And when you begin to explain what you want, they treat you like a silly sort of crazy creature that must be humoured, and somehow induced to go away. If, however, you have the good sense to begin by making one or two somewhat important purchases, everything and everybody in the shop will be at your service. The Chinese like buyers. But they object altogether to pricing after the American fashion.

There is not much more to be bought in Chungking than in Ichang; but there are bed-spreads of deep indigo-blue cotton, with an elaborate pattern traced out on them in a kind of plaster before they are dyed, which consequently become whiter each time the cloth is washed, and which do well for tablecloths. And there are felt rugs, which have been treated in the same way—the whole pattern traced by hand, though, and then the rug dipped in a bright scarlet. Even in Chungking we never can decide whether these rugs look handsome or the reverse. But in the frontier town of Tibet, in the Roman Catholic Bishop's palace, I thought one looked magnificent upon the floor. There are embroideries, of course, to be bought—there are always embroideries all over China. And there are wonderful straw hats from Chengtu, two yards in circumference; and with the straw braid so fine in the centre of the crown, that it has all to be sewn together standing edgewise, not flat, as is usual with hats.

"It requires a good conscience to get any sleep on Old Year Night in a Chinese city; the whole population watches the Old Year out. Ask them what they do all the time, they will say they enjoy themselves; again ask them how, they will tell you that they sit and chat all night long. No doubt the opium-pipe and game of chance help away the time. Certainly, firing crackers seems to be a large part of the watch-night service. From dark to dawn and everywhere they bang, bang, bang on the startled air of night, being intended as a sort of greeting to the New Year. All the first half of the night hurry and scurry fill the streets; the city gates are left open, so that belated creditors may not be hampered in the collection of their debts. Then towards midnight the last door is shut, and the last lucky inscription pasted up. This is a very important phase of the New Year. Every house in the empire that can afford it buys antithetical inscriptions for the two lintels of the door, and for the various other places of prominence on the walls. The vocabulary of polite ornament is ransacked, and the five happinesses, the points of the compass, rains, snows, winds, sunshine, country and home, wealth and longevity, are woven into the garlands of elegant phrases in every possible combination. On the doors themselves are pasted new pictures of the 'Door-Gods', who once in the fabled past delivered their monarch from the nightly visits of wandering bogeys, and whose pictures have been found ever since sufficient for a similar purpose throughout the empire. Across the windows are pasted strips of paper—'Chieh, the Supreme Duke, is here; bad spirits, get you gone,' for Chieh in his day, some two thousand years ago, gained great power over spirits, and to-day, though they have wit enough to read characters, they have not wit to know that they are being taken in, and therefore sneak away abashed when they find their old controller is within. Over the door-front is fixed a little mirror, so that any foul fiend who wants to enter, seeing his own ugly face reflected, will think another is there before him, and will fear the consequences of poaching. The 'door of wealth' is then closed, and the transactions of the year are ended. The door will in due time be opened once more with great ceremony, and with proper precautions to ensure that wealth shall flow in.

"As the night passes on, the guests refresh themselves with the food cooked in preparation; for cooking must not go on during the first day or so of the year. A banquet is prepared, and with the first glimmer of the dawn the head of the household goes out beneath the sky, and, spreading a carpet and offering viands, bows down with head to the ground towards the direction of the spirit of happiness. This spirit is changeable; he alters his direction every year, and the high authorities of Peking kindly act as his mouthpiece, giving notice beforehand to the people in which direction to bow. This year the dawn of the year saw many a pigtailed head bowed to the south-west; then followed the worship of ancestors by the whole household; while crackers and incense completed the welcome. At the same time the high officials, from the Viceroy downwards, assemble within the red and yellow walls of the Emperor's Temple. Great heaps of reeds are stacked through the neglected courts, which have been hastily weeded, and as the mandarins approach the whole scene is made ruddy with huge bonfires. The great chair of State—somewhat rickety and of simple local manufacture—acts as deputy for the Emperor, all the officials k`otow in unison, and then for a moment squat in the peculiar fashion observed in the actual presence of their sovereign. The temples of Confucius and the god of war are also visited for similar brief acts of reverence.

"By this time the day has well dawned, and shortly the round of calls begins. Everybody dons his best attire; and the number of buttons of gold on the top of juvenile or rarely respectable heads is marvellous. Most careful must everybody be to utter no word of ill-omen; tiger, death, devil, etc., etc., are all tabooed. For once in the year the foreigner may go on the streets with a fair prospect of not being greeted by the ordinary affectionate terms of abuse; for should any unfortunate youngster in his wonder call out 'foreign devil,' summary chastisement is sure to teach him that the luck of the family is not to be sacrificed even for the pleasure of baiting an outside stranger. The streets are filled with all the world paying calls; the world's wife does not venture out these first few days. And the work-worn city keeps its sabbaths for the whole year all in a fortnight."

A day or two after a great fire at Ichang a strange sight was to be seen. A man, who had been accused of helping to steal away some poor woman's child during the confusion, with a white calico placard pasted on to his coat behind attesting his innocence, his pigtail hanging unplaited, and wearing a crown of coarse paper cash, with long streamers of paper cash hanging from it, was going round from shrine to shrine, at each protesting his innocence. A man went before him with a gong, shouting out the whole story. It is to be hoped he was not one of the eight beheaded next day. What would be thought of eight executions in one day in Stamford or Teignmouth? But not so long ago England was equally bloodthirsty. We must remember that.

Another year we saw a similar sight, only much more picturesque. As we were going up-river, we met a boat coming down, and in the bow of it there was a man kneeling quite upright, with hands held up as if imploring. In the great beauty of a still reach in the Gorges it was a very moving spectacle; but it was only a rough-and-ready way of punishing a man accused of having tried to steal from his fellows.

I see I have said nothing of medicines. You can buy rhubarb in bulk quite fresh in Szechuan. It grows chiefly on the Tibetan border. Even under the Sung Dynasty the Chinese had three hundred and sixty-five kinds of drugs and one hundred and thirteen kinds of formulæ. But they use rough decoctions, and make tisanes from their drugs; they never make extracts, nor use minute and accurate weights to dole them out.

The ancient Chinese used metal models to exhibit man's inner structure; and everything that is most rare and dear they think must be useful for a medicine,—snakes, scorpions, the velvet off a deer's horns, a dead caterpillar with grass growing out of its head, tigers' bones, beautiful orchids, of which last whole boatloads float down from Chungking to Ichang. A Chinaman loves medicine; nothing pleases him better than to take it; and the European is always being asked for remedies, not so much because he believes foreign remedies to be good, but because he has found out to his delight and amazement that they are to be had for nothing. One doctor, delighted at the great reputation he thought he was acquiring amongst Chinese, was disgusted to find that as soon as he ceased giving away bottles with his medicines patients ceased to apply for them. But the benefits of quinine are so striking, that a Chinaman is ready to ask for this, even when you put it into his mouth for him. They suffer very much from fever, poor people! and when one thinks how many years they have stood the violent changes of their climate without ever a respite, and how much we ourselves lose our energy when exposed to them, one begins to feel more tolerance for a Chinaman's apparent inertia. Besides, what has he to gain by exerting himself? If he become rich, is not the life of a rich Chinaman so dull that only opium makes it possible to endure it? Once let Chinamen get a taste of the enjoyment of life, and they will be a different people. Now they suffer from fever as we do; they dislike bad smells, too, it seems—for no nation more delights in sweet-smelling flowers; they get depressed, and hipped as we do; and they have no light literature, no sports, very little of a newspaper press, no picture-galleries, no concerts, no bands, no intercourse with women, except of the baser sort. No wonder they look dull. And how they love to be amused!

CHAPTER XIV.
SOLDIERS.

At Ichang, a thousand miles up the river Yangtse, there is a regiment of soldiers dressed as tigers; but I never could persuade any of the foreign officials to escort me to see them manœuvre, the European opinion being that not even the presence of an inspecting general would awe the Tiger soldiers sufficiently to make it safe to take a foreign lady to see them. I was told that the Tigers were not really soldiers at all, but that some officer drew pay for them as if they existed; and then when the General came to inspect, all the beggars and riff-raff of the city put on the Tiger uniform over their rags, and turned out in so disorderly a condition that even their officers were afraid of them. And so it turned out that, except from a passing steamer, I never saw Chinese soldiers drill till I did so at Woosung, the new Treaty Port, at the junction of the Whangpoo, on which Shanghai is situated, with the great river Yangtse.

It was a Sunday in autumn, and the early morning air felt keen as we steamed down to Woosung, and landed at the fort. Eleven gunboats in a row, all decorated with large flags, the biggest flag in each boat a different arrangement of black, red, yellow, and white, had prepared us for its being a gala day, but hardly for the pretty sight we found upon the parade-ground, where five hundred men were being drilled with a hundred banners among them, not to speak of bannerets, many of the banners being ten feet square. The men formed in square, in rallying groups, fired altogether, one after the other, all to the sound of a bugle, without a single order being given. Drill sergeants in huge straw hats stood before them, and inspected them; and the men's own dress was picturesque enough—loose jackets with large characters upon them behind and before placed in circles like targets, and large loose-flapping leg-guards of decided colours. To the bugle's note the men folded their banners round the spears they carried, to the bugle's note they again flung them loose to the wind, executing both manœuvres with a singular adroitness. There was never a hitch, and the drill appeared admirable, recalling that to be seen from Birdcage Walk in a very curious fashion; for it was every now and again diversified by a primitively savage jump forward with spears pointed, to the sound of a terror-inspiring yell, and then a sort of goose-step retreat, after which the banners that had been tightly wound round the spears were shaken out again, and the men became civilised soldiers once more, admirably drilled.

After this I saw no more of Chinese soldiers for some time, only noticed that the one Chinese mandarin who showed anything approaching to gallantry towards me was a Chinese general, who, calling upon the Consul with whom we were staying in all his war-paint, was kind enough to take off his necklace for me to admire, when I had broken the ice by praising his embroideries; drew up his gown for me to admire his boots, which, like his necklace, were insignia of his official standing; and finally invited us, whenever we could succeed in effecting a landing there, to spend a long and happy day at new Kweichow. Unfortunately this city, built by order, is so situated, with all the worst rocks in the river just at the foot of it, that hardly any one ever can land there; and we never have succeeded in so doing, which I the more regretted as he was kindly careful to inform me that, though his own wife was dead, his daughter-in-law would do the honours to me. I flattered myself at the time that I had made quite an impression upon the General, who was over six feet one, and fully broad in proportion, and who presented a most gorgeous appearance in long brocade gown embroidered for about a foot round the bottom with waves of the sea and other Chinese devices. He wore also a long satin coat with embroidered breast-plate, and a similar square of embroidery on the back, with the horseshoe cuffs, forced upon the Chinese by the Manchus when the present dynasty came to the throne, falling over his hands. High official boots, an amber necklace of very large beads reaching to his waist, and aureole-shaped official cap with large red tassel, completed his costume. And when he first advanced into the room, and found me seated there with the British Consul, on whom he was paying a visit of ceremony, the huge creature turned back, growing crimson and giggling like a schoolgirl, as he said to one of his attendants (a numerous retinue of pipe-bearers and the like followed him), "Here is one of these foreign women. Whatever am I to do? I never was in a room with one before, and have no notion how to behave." Yet such is army training all the world over, that in five minutes the General was doing the polite in the most finished style.

There must be something in being a soldier—even in being a Chinese soldier. When we travelled with some thirty or so coolies and attendants, it was of course necessary for me to decide upon one man whose duty it was, whenever I got out of my sedan-chair, to follow me with the camera, help me to set it up, and generally attend upon me. Twice I picked out my man, without knowing anything of his antecedents, and in each case found I had selected the one ex-soldier of the company. It was idle for our man-servant to say they were probably bad characters, for a man did not go away from home and become a soldier for nothing. They were so handy and obliging, that, though both, alas! have come to grief since then, I have still a soft corner of my heart for my two Lao Liu's; for curiously enough both rejoiced in the same name, and mightily jealous of each other they were when they ultimately met. When it is considered that their duties varied from carrying my little dog, the untiring companion of all our wild travel, to carrying me myself pick-a-back across a mountain torrent, and included choosing the picturesque view-points for photographs (at least they both thought themselves mighty fine judges on this point), as well as defending me from infuriate peasantry when they rushed at me with mattocks, and regularly carrying me in a sedan when that was the mode of progression, together with collecting and caring for all my little odds and ends of wraps, boots, and the like, it may be seen what a very handy creature a Chinese soldier is, when he—shall we say is after a soft billet, or wants to oblige a lady?

Of course, we had unpleasant experiences with soldiers sometimes. On the S.S. Kuling they stole every portable bit of brass off the steamer whilst making a little voyage in her. On the S.S. Yling they managed to eat up or carry off all the food that had been intended to last for months, whilst their officers were being entertained by my husband at a dinner party.

Then came the Japanese War, and all the river between Ichang and Hankow became gay with most picturesque junks laden with Chinese soldiers going to the war. Their flags flew upon the breeze; they themselves, in their motley and decorative uniforms, sat in groups mounted up on top of the junks. Occasionally the old-world, almost antediluvian music of their long, somewhat mournful trumpets sounded across the water. "Nous allons à la boucherie, à la boucherie, à la boucherie," sang the French recruits in their train-loads hurrying to fight the Germans. These Chinese levies might well have sung the same. But they sat impassive and yellow-faced beneath their high black turbans, apparently in nowise excited or discontented with their lot. How mercifully the future hides from us what may be in store for us on the morrow! And how terrible would it be, could some

These Hunan soldiers evidently looked upon themselves as "braves," sure of their rice; good, honest fellows they looked most of them, well grown and well fed. But to us they appeared as victims upon the altar of Chinese corruption and ineptitude. Yet is it our hearts harden in China? There are so many victims in the world one contemplates with more of sorrow than these Chinese soldiers as they floated down the great river in their red and orange, with the black kerchiefs of Hunan binding their yellow brows. To the butchery! To the butchery! Float on, Chinese soldiers, all unconscious of your doom, and convinced beyond the power of argument and canon that there is no race like the Chinese race, and that all other nations are your subjects born—rebellious, perhaps, but to be subject to the end! It is a somewhat similar conviction which carries the Anglo-Saxon race forward—indeed, each nation in turn, till it meets its destiny in the God-appointed hour.

The story of the Japanese War has been written for the Chinese by Dr. Allen, and read with avidity by them. For the English public it has not been written. Contradictory telegrams arrived till people began to look in doubt upon any news emanating from Shanghai. But, indeed, the truth was incredible. It was impossible to believe that the Empress and Li Hung-chang between them had brought their nation to such a pass that no regiment was properly armed. If they had got the guns, they had not got the cartridges that fitted them; but generally speaking they had not got the guns. The men stolidly appreciated the situation; they made no complaint; but when they could they ran away, which was about the only thing they could do under the circumstances. Did not six generals bolt before one battle? Or was that one of the telegrams that reached us in the west of China, where we were even less well informed than people in England? People talked of the feats of Chinese soldiery under Gordon, forgetting always that these feats were performed by Chinese soldiers properly armed, and against soldiers who were also Chinese, and not led by Gordons, nor properly armed. It is still a question whether Chinese will ever stand against a European army. They have the greatest contempt for their own soldiery, call them by a title of contempt—Ping Ting!—regard fighting altogether as barbarous, and long ago were of the opinion now enunciated to the world by the Russian Czar.

After the war was over, the poor soldiers were certainly as badly treated as they could possibly deserve. Their officers pocketed their pay, and then decamped, leaving their men in many cases completely destitute, out at elbows, and far away from their homes. No wonder that they misconducted themselves! Comical enough incidents occurred during the war; as, for instance, when a company of Cantonese soldiers stopped for food and rest at a little village. The villagers willingly disposed of food at good prices; and the soldiers were about to leave, when a village elder informed them that the Japanese were in the neighbourhood, and he would advise them to leave their weapons and ammunition in the village; for if the Japanese saw them armed, they would think they had come to fight, and would kill them all. This seemed good advice to the soldiers; so they requested that they might be allowed to leave their weapons in the village till some future day. The villagers consented, and the guns and cartridges were stacked together; but no sooner had the soldiers started on their way, than the villagers seized the guns, and commenced a deadly fire on the now disarmed braves. Many were killed, and all were robbed of everything about them, until their costume was scarcely as extensive as that usually worn by a Swatow fisherman.

Here is a sad little account of one detachment, taken from a Chinese paper:

"The first batch of Hunan men who are without occupation, property, or income is three hundred and seventeen in number. H. E. ordered them to be taken by gunboat to their homes. Those who belonged to Hengyang were to receive $3 (6s.) each as expenses for their land journey, and those of Changsha $2 (4s.) each. On the day of debarkation, they were marched from the city to Shakuan; but on reaching that place their number had diminished to one hundred and eighty, the others having fallen out, complaining of sickness and fatigue, though the distance they had traversed was only about six miles. These invalids were handed over to the guardhouses along the road for safe keeping, and will be deported with the next batch. The crusade is being continued with great vigour, and no doubt the ultimate number of deportees will amount to many thousands."

When a general intended to review the four battalions of troops that do duty on the Grand Canal, he found that, instead of numbering sixteen hundred, as they ought to do, they practically did not exist, and that, "as was universally the case in the army," the pay of the skeleton force that was maintained was three months in arrear. Their number was simply made up against the general in command holding a review, and as soon as he left the old system of corruption was resorted to.

One of the few men who distinguished himself on the Chinese side in the late war was Admiral Ting; and as illustrating the career of a Chinese soldier, it may be as well to relate his history, for this noble admiral was in reality a Chinese brave. Born of poor parents, and having had to work hard for a living, he entered the army as a private at the age of sixteen; but after a few years was promoted to be an officer. In the war against the rebels in the Western provinces, he fought as a captain in Li Hung-chang's cavalry, and after that was promoted to be colonel of the same regiment. During the Taiping rebellion, he again distinguished himself as an officer.

But when China began to form a fleet in 1880, not having any naval officers, she had to look for some one amongst the officers of the army to take command of her squadron of alphabetical gunboats, and Ting was ordered to fill this post by Imperial Decree. At first, in all matters of navigation, he had to seek help from his subordinate officers, some of whom had been brought up in foreign military and naval schools, and by doing so lost much of his authority. But by degrees he learnt to know as much about navigation and seamanship as any of them; and when in 1884 some one was wanted to go to England to bring out two new cruisers, it was again Ting who was selected. Western civilisation seems to have made a real impression upon him; and after returning from Europe, his great wish was always to form a navy that might be sufficient to defend the Chinese coast, and with this object in view he adopted as far as possible European customs. Many Europeans came in contact with him whilst at Chefoo, and all seem to have been most favourably impressed by him. When the Japanese War began, Ting's views often differed from those of his Government; but he knew that his duty was to obey, and so with resolution he awaited the fate that he clearly saw must one day befall him. For he knew that by the laws of his country his life would be forfeited by the loss of his ships and Wei-hai-wei. After the fall of Port Arthur, he had been deprived of his honours, and ordered to proceed to Peking and give himself over to the Board of Punishment; but owing to the remonstrances of all the European officers of the fleet, this edict had been cancelled, and the brave old soldier reinstated as admiral in command. After the fall of Wei-hai-wei, he knew there was nothing for him but death, and he preferred to perish by his own hand, and thus save his family from dishonour, rather than to be decapitated. All his countrymen approved his action; and so this man, who had risen from the lowliest position, died, as he had lived, respected. Kind and fatherly to his soldiers as to his family, he had been greatly beloved. But in the condition to which Li Hung-chang and the Empress Tze Hsi had brought both fleet and army, what other end could there be for a brave soldier?

The army was, indeed, divided against itself. At Kiangyin, on the Yangtse, where there were German instructors, the main powder magazine on the left bank of the river blew up; it was never known whether by accident or design, although it looked like the latter. Two hundred lives were lost, and there were many wounded. The foreigners on the right bank were afraid to cross, as the Anhui soldiers were in a state of mutiny, holding their general prisoner, and intending to kill him. They were decided, should the mutiny spread, to move over to the Hunan men, on whom they could rely, and who would not assist the Anhui men. They knew that the general was keeping back his men's pay; and although the intervention of the Literary Chancellor had been asked, no reliance was placed on his power of pacifying the soldiery, his corruption was known to be so great.

The German officer who had been acting as General at Woosung close to Shanghai up to the spring of 1898 gave a most amusing, though somewhat disheartening, account of his handing over his command. The Chinese did not want to have German officers any more, so a Chinese General was to take command; and first he did not arrive, although the men were all drawn up under arms waiting for him, because he had suddenly found out it was an unlucky day; so he had had his boats moored up a creek, and was quietly waiting there. The German was indignant, and required him once more to fix his day. A Sunday was appointed, and the German sent to inform him that all the men would again be drawn up, and that when he saw the Chinese General riding forward he would give order, "Shoulder arms! Present arms!" then the Chinese General must say, "Order arms!" and then the command would be given over. "But surely I am not expected to ride? I cannot possibly ride," replied the Chinese General. The German persisted he must ride. So on the appointed day there appeared the Chinese General huddled on to a very small pony, with two men holding it one on each side, and a third holding an umbrella over him, for it was raining hard. He at once shouted out his word of command; but as the previous order had not been given, it could not be followed. The German tried to explain this. "Oh," said the Chinese General, "I cannot believe it does any one any good to be kept out in rain like this. Just tell the men they can go away. This will do for to-day." So the men dispersed, and the German cavalry officer felt there was the end of his efforts for many years to uphold discipline.

Of course, the story is well known of Admiral Lang going off to a Chinese man-of-war to see if discipline were well maintained, and finding no sentry outside the Chinese Admiral's cabin. Going in to protest, he found the Admiral and another playing dominoes. "Really, Admiral," he began, "I thought you had promised me to maintain discipline. How is it, then, I find no sentry outside your door?" "Oh, well, I am very sorry," replied the Chinese Admiral. "But I really was so dull, I just asked him in to play dominoes with me."

The days of old-time Chinese reviews must be numbered, and so I will conclude this chapter with an account of the one great one I have seen. The Viceroy arrived the day before. Great was the show of flags, and the whole city was in a white heat of excitement. We foreigners were all going about, each guarded by two soldiers in front of us, intelligent-seeming, very civil men, in beautiful new clothes, their bright-red waistcoats giving them a very festive appearance. There were besides numbers of men in orange coats, who seemed to have some duty as regarded keeping order; whilst tsaijen (messengers), with pale, anxious-looking faces, sprang forward in dozens to protect me, when I went to examine the parade-ground. All the houses had been removed from it, and a mock city wall with five gates built across it by means of dark-blue cotton, with white chalk lines to simulate the joins of the blocks of stone. All the world (without his wife) had been out drinking tea at tables there, and the scene was what Chungking people call reh-lau, or "really jolly."

The next day we were all to get up at five o'clock, we understood, and dressed in Chinese clothes; for places had been arranged for the foreigners to see the sight, but we were requested if possible not to shock the populace by our queer foreign dress. The city was full of strangers, many of them with very flushed faces—a great contrast in their insouciance to the stream of extremely grave, anxious-looking mandarins in chairs coming back in full dress from waiting upon the great man. The review was beautifully set upon the stage; the Viceroy's entrance could hardly be improved upon: