Read books online » Travel » Page 2

Genre Travel. Page - 2

Read books online at the best ebook library worldlibraryebooks.com. Read all the best and interesting books of the Travel genre on your phone or РС.

s his confidence in the English critics being less unreasonable in their demands; and that their indulgences will be proportioned to the difficulties that occurred in collecting accurate information. With this reliance, the descriptions, observations, and comparisons, such as they are, he presents to the public, candidly acknowledging that he is actuated rather by the hope of meeting its forbearance, than by the confidence of deserving its approbation.

[1] Monsieur (I beg his pardon) Citoyen Charpentier Cossigny.

Perhaps it may not be thought amiss, before he enters on the more immediate subject of the work, to correct, in this place, a very mistaken notion that prevailed on the return of the embassy, which was, that an unconditional compliance of Lord Macartney with all the humiliating ceremonies which the Chinese might have thought proper to exact from him, would have been productive of results more favourable to the views of the embassy. Assertions of such a general nature are more easily made than refuted, and indeed unworthy of attention; but a letter of a French missionary at Peki

was in China the LORD wanted me. It seemed to me highly probable that the work to which I was thus called might cost my life; for China was not then open as it is now. But few missionary societies had at that time workers in China, and but few books on the subject of China missions were accessible to me. I learned, however, that the Congregational minister of my native town possessed a copy of Medhurst's China, and I called upon him to ask a loan of the book. This he kindly granted, asking me why I wished to read it. I told him that GOD had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land. "And how do you propose to go there?" he inquired. I answered that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should need to do as the Twelve and the Seventy had done in Judæa--go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need. Kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, "Ah, my boy, as you grow older you will get wiser than tha

ed another door, which ushered him at once into a very large hall, the aspect of which quite bewildered him. There were a great many desks and tables about the hall, with clerks writing at them, and people coming and going with passports and permits in their hands. Rollo stepped forward into the room, surveying the scene with great curiosity and wonder, when his attention was suddenly arrested by the voice of a soldier, who rose suddenly from his chair, and said,--

"Your cap, young gentleman."

Rollo immediately recollected that he had his cap on, while all the other people in the room were uncovered. He took his cap off at once, saying to the soldier at the same time, "Pardon, sir," which is the French mode of making an apology in such cases. The soldier then resumed his seat, and Rollo and Carlos walked on slowly up the hall.

Nobody took any notice of them. In fact, every one seemed busy with his own concerns, except that in one part of the room there were several benches where a number

west? He often asked himself that question in some amusement as they approached the coast of China. They entered a long winding channel and steamed this way and that until one day they sailed into a fine broad harbor with a magnificent city rising far up the steep sides of a hill. It was an Oriental city, and therefore strange to the young traveller. But for all that there seemed something familiar in the fine European buildings that lined the streets, and something still more homelike in that which floated high above them--something that brought a thrill to the heart of the young Canadian--the red-crossed banner of Britain!

It was Hongkong, the great British port of the East, and here he decided to land. No sooner had the travelers touched the dock, than they were surrounded by a yelling, jostling crowd of Chinese coolies, all shouting in an outlandish gibberish for the privilege of carrying the Barbarians' baggage. A group gathered round Mackay, and in their eagerness began hammering each other with

sion.Let them be always honored according to their deserts;and long may Maclear, Herschel, Airy, and others live to make knownthe wonders and glory of creation, and to aid in renderingthe pathway of the world safe to mariners, and the dark places of the earthopen to Christians!

I beg to offer my hearty thanks to my friend Sir Roderick Murchison,and also to Dr. Norton Shaw, the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society,for aiding my researches by every means in their power.

His faithful majesty Don Pedro V., having kindly sent out ordersto support my late companions until my return, relieved my mind of anxietyon their account. But for this act of liberality, I should certainlyhave been compelled to leave England in May last; and it has afforded methe pleasure of traveling over, in imagination, every scene again,and recalling the feelings which actuated me at the time.I have much pleasure in acknowledging my deep obligationsto the hospitality and kindness of the Portuguese on many occasio

l condition of herparents was such that when a child she had to help in caring forthe younger children, carrying them on her back, as girls do inChina, and amusing them with such simple toys as are hawked aboutthe streets or sold in the shops for a cash or two apiece; thatshe and her brothers and little sisters amused themselves withsuch games as blind man's buff, prisoner's base, kicking marblesand flying kites in company with the other children of theirneighbourhood. During these early years she was as fond of thepuppet plays, trained mice shows, bear shows, and "Punch andJudy" as she was in later years of the theatrical performanceswith which she entertained her visitors at the palace. She wascompelled to run errands for her mother, going to the shops, asoccasion required, for the daily supply of oils, onions, garlic,and other vegetables that constituted the larger portion of theirfood. I found out also that there is not the slightest foundationfor the story that in her childhood she was so

ce Christians," those spurious Christians who become converted in return for being provided with rice, are just those who profit by these differences of opinion, and who, with timely lapses from grace, are said to succeed in being converted in turn by all the missions from the Augustins to the Quakers.

Every visitor to Hankow and to all other open ports, who is a supporter of missionary effort, is pleased to find that his preconceived notions as to the hardships and discomforts of the open port missionary in China are entirely false. Comfort and pleasures of life are there as great as in any other country. Among the most comfortable residences in Hankow are the quarters of the missionaries; and it is but right that the missionaries should be separated as far as possible from all discomfort--missionaries who are sacrificing all for China, and who are prepared to undergo any reasonable hardship to bring enlightenment to this land of darkness.

I called at the headquarters of the Spanish mission of

him step by step along my rough path fromthe beginning to the end; through scorching deserts and thirsty sands;through swamp, and jungle, and interminable morass; throughdifficulties, fatigues, and sickness, until I bring him, faint with thewearying journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall burstupon his view--from which he shall look down upon the vast ALBERT LAKE,and drink with me from the Sources of the Nile!

I have written "HE!" How can I lead the more tender sex through dangersand fatigues, and passages of savage life? A veil shall be thrown overmany scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but which I willnot force upon the reader; neither will I intrude anything that is notactually necessary in the description of scenes that unfortunately mustbe passed through in the journey now before us. Should anything offendthe sensitive mind, and suggest the unfitness of the situation for awoman's presence, I must beseech my fair readers to reflect, that thepilgrim's wife f

clothes on a rock; further, a woman's scarf, a gown, a straw bonnet, the brig's caboose, and one of her masts high and dry, broken into several pieces. In another rocky cove, several rods from the water, and behind rocks twenty feet high, lay a part of one side of the vessel, still hanging together. It was, perhaps, forty feet long, by fourteen wide. I was even more surprised at the power of the waves, exhibited on this shattered fragment, than I had been at the sight of the smaller fragments before. The largest timbers and iron braces were broken superfluously, and I saw that no material could withstand the power of the waves; that iron must go to pieces in such a case, and an iron vessel would be cracked up like an egg-shell on the rocks. Some of these timbers, however, were so rotten that I could almost thrust my umbrella through them. They told us that some were saved on this piece, and also showed where the sea had heaved it into this cove, which was now dry. When I saw where it had come in, and in what