ground of the wharf, all tied together by their
pigtails, listening to it also with an expression of
heavy, hopeless, uncertain incomprehensibility.
Whereupon Jack, who is guarding them,
observes, "Well, of all the stupid beggars I ever
did see"—and then cuffs two of their heads
together, as he adds, "no more feeling than
nothing, they haven't got!"

Past military "Mossoos" concocting a bouillon
out of scraps and crusts, and something very like
hay, under the flickering shade of tricolor flags
and union jacks; between groups of magnificent
Sepoys, whose haughty salute looks very much
like hatred quenched in fear, and then up into a
little wigwam pagoda at the south-eastern angle of
the walls, wherein, Captain Castella informs me
in confidence, we shall find drinks. We climb
up this edifice, which is very like a birdcage built
after the fashion of a Chinese lighthouse, if
there is such a thing, and enter a small room,
pasted all over with cuts from English
illustrated papers and periodicals. There is good
cheer here to-day; evidences of a successful
"loot" in the neighbourhood. There is a roast
sucking-pig at top—fancy tasting crackling in
the country where Elia's Bo-Bo first discovered
it—and a roast goose at the bottom; with quarts
of pale ale, and pints of champagne in a tub of
saltpetre and water to cool them, obtained from
Mr. Telesio, who has a store-chop down on the
landing. A comforting man is Telesio. He looted
an old flower-boat, from which the mandarins
and improprieties had run away, all in a minute,
when the Cruiser first opened fire on the doomed
city in the memorable Christmastide of 1857-8.
Then he fitted up this chop with goodly stores;
barrels of beer, dozens of wines and brandies,
and endless comestibles warranted to keep any
length of time in any climate—a floating Fortnum,
with an associate Mason upon Magazine
Hill. He has marmalade, sardines, and Irish
stew and haricot in red tins impossible to open
if you do not carry a pickaxe in your pocket.
There is Mann's fine butter—I do not know
Mann—and Yankee peaches, and oysters, and
bitters, also Dutch stomachic ditto. The familiar
names of Huntley and Palmer, Lee and Perrin,
Crosse and Blackwell, and Lazenby, call out
England from their nooks and corners; and
there are, in addition, cases and bottles labelled
with those other names, entirely unknown to us
in London, which appear to, and do, command
such a wonderful export trade of medicines and
condiments, to all corners of the world—if a
globe can have corners.

All hospitality is accorded here. The latest
London news is reported—the last jokes are
repeated, and club squabbles discussed—and then,
with a warm good-by to Captain Castella, I
sally forth, with two coolies carrying my box,
and the faithful Rosario at my side, to head-
quarters, about two miles off.

It is a blazing, scathing, dazzling afternoon,
and the western sun is scorching on the walls,
coming first through our umbrellas, and then
through our pith hats, and after that through
our skulls, until our brains must be simmering;
and the tree-crickets, as one of the siege train
observes, "want oiling uncommon." But we
plod on, along the walls, which have a broad
walk behind the embrasures on our right, and a
sloping bank on our left, going down at once to
the city. I am reminded occasionally of the
walls of Chester. Below, on the right, seen
through the loopholes, is the suburb of
demolished houses, and the open country. On the
left is Canton, or rather its former site, for
nothing but acres and acres of brick-bats are now
to be seen. As we pass the different pagodas
over the city gates, we find them filled with
troops; and, now and then, the surprised
exclamation of "Why, what the (never mind) brings
you out here, old fellow?" prefaces another
visit and more beer.

The head-quarters at Canton are placed on a
finely wooded hill, covered with as many joss-
houses as the Monte Sacro at Varallo. In the
finest of these, built and endowed by Yeh,
and barely finished, General Von Straubenzee
has taken up his residence. Its position is
excellently shown in Mr. Burford's very faithful
panorama now exhibiting: and the
different associated temples—this one is
dedicated to the Genii of Eternal Spring—rise
steeply above one another, for all the world like
the perpendicular landscape on a carved ivory
card-case. You enter through one of the usual
circular openings peculiar to China, and ascend a
broad, tall flight of stairs—no joke in this climate
—until you arrive on a fine terrace, with the
open halls of the joss forming the background.
Here I met the General, and a frank, unaffected
welcome makes me quite at home at once, as
the coolies bring my box into a room which I
am to call my own. It is an elaborately
decorated Chinese apartment, with oyster-shells
scraped as thin as paper let into the casements,
octagonal in shape, like honeycombs. The
furniture is all of hard ebony, marvellously carved,
and at the end of the room is an open-work
screen of fruits and flowers, which Quintin Matsys
might have taken as a pattern for his wrought iron
work; and under this there is the usual opium-
smoking platform, with its hard square wooden
pillows. The doors open on a terrace shaded
with matting, and on a balcony of those beautiful
green Chinese tiles, worked au jour, upon which
are placed huge comical vases, holding growing
flowers of rare beauty. From the ceilings hang
flower-baskets of fresh petals strung on wires;
and some restless little birds jerk about and
polish their beaks in delicate bamboo cages, not
much caring whether Buddhists or Christians
worship in the temple, so long as they get their
food.

It wants an hour to dinner, so I stroll up the
wood behind the temple, and pass through some
other temples, and under some square triumphal
elevations, and up more stairs to the northern
walls. Here and there I get a fine view of the
suburban country; level, populous, and highly
cultivated, stretching away towards the White
Cloud Mountains. Pleasant-looking little villages
are dotted here and there; stone causeways run