THERE was a regular fracas. We had made certain of our ‘morning’ of cold fowl, rice, and the flavoury decoction; anathematised the mule-driver for his tardiness, and showered a hail-storm of harsh-sounding phrases on the bristly head of the groom, intended considerably to sharpen his sight and intellect, both of which, we had very good cause to suspect, had been materially affected by a night's gambling, and by potations of warm Samshu—alas! his Roman Catholic principles and religious education had not done much to correct these flaws in Chinese human nature.

The bill was produced, read, and negatived, to the intense disgust of the saturnine old crab-apple of a host, who had been lurking in a recess, watching us like a spider for a fly, and pounced out at the last moment with a miserable shred of common paper, on which was a cramped, confused, and botched list of all sorts of things, put down at four times the price we had paid at the other houses: this he unblushingly held up for M. to examine.

The craft of the man was sufficiently evident; he was clearly endeavouring to make us pay for the destruction of his infirm courtyard wall, levelled the evening before by the now circumspect populace, who formed a wide circle around us while the question was being discussed whether one-half of the extortionate charge would suffice, or whether we must refer the whole business to a mandarin.

ONLY one brief hour was allowed us to recruit; at its termination, without changing our costume, we started off again to make another score of miles.

The time we had purposed accomplishing the journey in was very limited; we knew not what was before us, and the means of returning to Tien-tsin again were very doubtful. We wavered between taking the chance of meeting a small trading vessel ready to start from New-Chwang — one of the five northern ports opened to our trade — chartering there a junk, and trusting to wind and weather to find our way across the Gulf in about a fortnight, or having to ride back the way we were now going. We were afraid of overstaying our leave, and therefore thought it best to hurry on while progress was possible.

The way was dull enough and the evening was lowering; the villages looked very triste and lonely in the midst of so much water and sloppy ground, but in fine days they must have worn a much merrier aspect.

A large old-fashioned town—all Chinese towns are oldfashioned, but this one appeared more so than any we had yet seen — was passed through.

It looked as quiet as if all the inhabitants had gone to bed, but possessed good houses built of stone and brick, neatly finished off, and the almost flat roofs tiled or thatched with straw.

BENDING a little northwards, the country commenced raising itself from the marsh and mud, and the salt efflorescence on the sun-baked crust of earth began to be succeeded by grass as the road became firmer and our progress accelerated; while the light-green foliage of the graceful willow interposed itself between us and the sun at short intervals, and here and there formed diminutive avenues of shade, as refreshing to the sight as they were grateful to the feelings.

Farm-houses, from being isolated and scarce, began to congregate in gradually increasing numbers on the most favoured situations, and to exchange the millet-stalk and poverty-stricken earthen structures for those of brick and wood; and the fields put forth their improving aspects in the same manner, showing how eagerly the inhabitants seized on the slightest approach of amendment in the soil to bring it under the sway of cultivation. The ditches were cut with more skill; attempts had been made to raise the general level, and where this had not succeeded, the land was banked round with wide ridges to keep out the water; —in short, the desolate country was being rapidly redeemed by the efforts of scrupulous industry.

The gardens displayed a little more vitality, and some of them a fair amount of taste in the matter of flowers and vegetable beds, and every one had its two or three vines neatly trellised over the little square bower that served for their support, as well as a cool shady recess for the inmates of the houses.

NEAR this town we spent an entire day among the out-of-doors people, as it was better situated than other places we had sailed by, similarly located on muddy mounds. There were patches of wheat for home consumption; tolerably large rice fields, loved haunts of the snipe—made and in process of manufacture by scores of naked men who stole and scooped the slimy earth from below the water, and bound it with bundles of reeds, flags, or millet-stalk; there were good gardens admirably cultivated, and stocked with those vegetables and fruits that grow best in this almost tropical summer; and there were also good houses of brick, and fine healthy inmates to look at.

There was some sport going on—for away at least a mile or two the dull booming of heavy firearms was incessant, as if an active engagement was being fought; so to observe it better, if not to share in it, we had to hire a small shallop, poled by a rusty-moustached old man who knew the country well, like an old huntsman, and who could make his rounds to the easiest fences of reeds or rushes, and by a dexterous push and a jerk of the skiff, clear them cleverly. We were amazed.

Every foot of swamp was converted into something or another more mysterious, more fantastic, and more unmeaning, as we went on poling and paddling over all kinds of infernal machines and comical contrivances reared up from the water, lying in the water, or fixed in the weedy bottom.

OUR short halt had expired; we had still our twenty miles to ride before night. The novelty excited by our stay had been slightly worn off, our bill was paid, and all that was necessary to transact before we bade goodbye to the secluded town, accomplished. We moved out into the streets again, through the lanes of upturned faces on each side; and were soon in the country, plodding and ploughing through sandy roads, sometimes uphill, sometimes downhill; into villages and out again, nearing the mountains one half-hour, and leaving them the next; buried in the surging seas of millet, disentombed in speckled fields of melons or auriferous cotton shrubs; half swamped amongst Indian corn, gliding through arcades of sylvan architecture bidding defiance to the thoroughfare of the sun, or across encaustic squares of dye-plants and brown earth; on to roads divergent, convergent — everything but straight, and irregular, heavy, and shifting, inconsistent and unendurable, in their general character, were it not for the mellow temperature of the afternoon and the agreeable diversity of everything coming within the range of vision. A large piece of ground is passed which is solely given up to the cultivation of the greenish-purple indigo, among the even lines of which hoers are industriously turning over and breaking up the earth. Two wide cisterns of white cement, some eight or ten feet in breadth, and four or five in depth, are in the middle of the crop for the maceration or fermentation of the plants which are not yet in flower.