VERY HARD CASH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

CHAPTER X.

NORTH Latitude 23½, Longitude East 113;
the time March of this same year; the wind
southerly; the port Whampoa, in the Canton
river. Ships at anchor reared their tall masts here
and there; and the broad stream was enlivened
and coloured by junks, and boats, of all sizes and
vivid hues, propelled on the screw principle by a
great scull at the stern, with projecting handles
for the crew to work; and at times a gorgeous
mandarin boat, with two great glaring eyes set in
the bows, came flying, rowed with forty paddles
by an armed crew, whose shields hung on the
gunwale and flashed fire in the sunbeams: the mandarin,
in conical and buttoned hat, sitting on the
top of his cabin calmly smoking Paradise, alias
opium, while his gong boomed and his boat flew
fourteen miles an hour, and all things scuttled
out of his celestial way. And there, looking
majestically down on all these water ants, the
huge Agra, cynosure of so many loving eyes
and loving hearts in England, lay at her moorings;
homeward bound.

Her tea not being yet on board, the ship's
hull floated high as a castle, and to the
subtle, intellectual, doll-faced, bolus-eyed people,
that sculled to and fro busy as bees, though
looking forked mushrooms, she sounded like
a vast musical shell: for a lusty harmony of
many mellow voices vibrated in her great cavities,
and made the air ring cheerily around her.
The vocalists were the Cyclopes, to judge by the
tremendous thumps that kept clean time to their
sturdy tune. Yet it was but human labour, so heavy
and so knowing, that it had called in music to
help. It was the third mate and his gang
completing his floor to receive the coming tea chests.
Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many
hundred bundles of light flexible canes from
Sumatra and Malacca; on these he had laid
tons of rough saltpetre, in 200lb. gunny-bags:
and was now mashing it to music, bags and all.
His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in
line, with huge wooden beetles called
commanders, and lifted them high and brought them
down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical
power and unison, singing as follows, with a
ponderous bump on the last note in each bar.

{Image of musical notes} Here goes one, Owe me there one, One now it is

{Image of musical notes} gone. There's a-nother yet to come, And a-way we'll go to Flan-

{Image of musical notes} ders, A-mongst our wood-en command-ers,

{Image of musical notes} Where we'll get wine in plen-ty, Rum, bran-dy, and ge-na-vy.

{Image of musical notes} Here goes two.  Owe me there two, &c.

And so up to fifteen, when the stave was
concluded with a shrill "Spell, oh!" and the gang
relieved streaming with perspiration. When the saltpetre
was well mashed, they rolled ton butts of
water on it, till the floor was like a billiard table.
A fleet of chop boats then began to arrive, so
many per day, with the tea-chests. Mr Grey
proceeded to lay the first on his saltpetre
floor, and then built the chests, tier upon tier,
beginning at the sides, and leaving the middle
a lane somewhat narrower than a tea chest. Then
he applied a screw jack to the chests on both