the best he could. The shaving was finished at last; I then dressed myself in the costume of the country, and the result was pronounced by my servants and boatmen to be very satisfactory.

The whole country to the westward of Shanghae is intersected with rivers and canals, so that the traveller can visit by boat almost all the towns and cities in this part of the province. Some of the canals lead to the large cities of Sung-kiang-foo, Soochow-foo, Nanking, and onward by the Grand Canal to the capital itself. Others, again, running to the west and south-west, form the highways to the Tartar city of Chapoo, Hang-chow-foo, and to numerous other cities and towns, which are studded over this large and important plain.

We proceeded in a south-westerly direction-my destination being the city of Hang-chow-foo. Having a fair wind during the first day, we got as far as the Maou lake, a distance of 120 or 130 le* from Shanghae. Here we stopped for the night, making our boat fast to a post driven into the grassy banks of the lake. Starting early next morning, we reached in the forenoon a town of considerable size, named Kea-hing-yuen, and a little farther on we came to the city of Kea-hing-foo, a large place walled and fortified.

This city seems nearly as large as Shanghae, and probably contains about the same number of inha

A le has generally been set down as the third part of an English mile, but if we suppose a fourth, or even a fifth, we shall be nearer the truth.

bitants 270,000. Its walls and ramparts had been in a most dilapidated and ruinous condition, but the people got such a fright when the English took Chapoo-which is not a very great distance offthat they came forward with funds, and had the defences of their city substantially repaired. Such was the boatmen's story when accounting for the excellent order in which the fortifications were. A number of old grain junks, of great size considering the depth of water, are moored in the canal abreast of the city, and are apparently used as dwelling-houses by the natives; some, however, are half sunk in the water, and appear entirely abandoned. Junks of the same description as these are seen abreast of all the large towns on the grand canal. When too old for the Government service they seem to be drawn up the nearest city, and either used by Government officers as dwelling-houses, or sold to the highest bidder.

We had now entered the great Hang-chow silk district, and the mulberry was observed in great abundance on the banks of the canal, and in patches over all the country.

I was greatly struck with the appearance of a cemetery on the western side of the city of Keahing-foo, not very far from the city walls. Its large extent gave a good idea of the numerous and dense population of the town. It had evidently existed for many ages, for a great number of the tombstones were crumbling to pieces, and mingling with the ashes of the dead. But this "place of skulls" was

no barren waste, like those churchyards which we see in large towns at home. Here the dead were interred amidst groves of the weeping willow, mulberry-trees, and several species of juniper and pine. Wild roses and creepers of various kinds were scrambling over the tombs, and the whole place presented a hallowed and pleasing aspect.

Leaving the old town behind us, and sailing westward, we entered a broad sheet of water of considerable size, which is probably part of, or at least joins, the celebrated Tai-ho lake. The water is very shallow, and a great part of it is covered with the Trapa bicornis a plant called ling by the Chinese. It produces a fruit of a very peculiar shape, resembling the head and horns of a bullock, and is highly esteemed in all parts of the empire. I have seen three distinct species or varieties, one of which has fruit of a beautiful red colour.

Women and boys were sailing about on all parts of the lake, in tubs of the same size and form as our common washing-tubs, gathering the fruit of the ling. I don't know of any contrivance which would have answered their purpose better than these rude tubs, for they held the fruit as it was gathered as well as the gatherer, and at the same time were easily propelled through the masses of ling without doing the plants any injury. The sight of a number of people swimming about on the lake, each in his tub, had something very ludicrous about it.

After we had passed the lake, the banks of the canal, and indeed the greater part of the country,

were covered with mulberry trees. Silk is evidently the staple production in this part of China. During the space of two days-and in that time I must have travelled upwards of a hundred miles-I saw little else than mulberry trees. They were evidently carefully cultivated, and in the highest state of health, producing fine, large, and glossy leaves. When it is remembered that I was going in a straight direction through the country, some idea may be formed of the extent of this enormous silk district, which probably occupies a circle of at least a hundred miles in diameter. And this, it must be remembered, is only one of the silk districts in China, but it is the principal and the best one. The merchant and silkmanufacturer will form a good idea of the quantity of silk consumed in China, when told that, after the war, on the port of Shanghae being opened, the exports of raw silk increased in two or three years from 3000 to 20,000 bales. This fact shows, I think, the enormous quantity which must have been in the Chinese market before the extra demand could have been so easily supplied. But as it is with tea, so it is with silk,-the quantity exported bears but a small proportion to that consumed by the Chinese themselves. The 17,000 extra bales sent yearly out of the country have not in the least degree affected the price of raw silk or of silk manufactures. This fact speaks for itself.

Seh-mun-yuen, a town about 140 le north-east from Hang-chow-foo, was the next place of any note which I passed. It is apparently a very ancient

city, but has no trade, and is altogether in a most dilapidated condition. The walls were completely overrun with wild shrubs, and in many places were crumbling into ruins. It had evidently seen better and more prosperous days, which had long ago passed by. The boatmen informed me that this part of the country abounded in thieves and robbers, and that they must not all go to bed at night, otherwise something would be stolen from the boat before morning.

We reached the city about three o'clock in the afternoon. The morning had been cold and rainy, and the boatmen, who were all wet to the skin, refused to proceed further that day. I was therefore obliged to make up my mind to stay there all that night, and a more disagreeable one I never spent. After dark my servants and the boatmen told stories of celebrated pirates and robbers, until they frightened themselves, and almost made me believe myself to be in dangerous company. The wind was very high, and, as it whistled amongst the ruinous ramparts, the sound was dismal enough; and what added still more to our discomfort, the rain beat through the roof of our boat, and kept dripping upon our beds.

my

Before retiring to sleep it had been arranged that

coolie and one of the boatmen were to sit and keep watch during the night for our protection from thieves. The coolie's station was inside the boat, where I was, and the other man was to keep watch in the after-part of the boat, where the cooking department was carried on. How long these sentries