About seven hours' run, in one of the American
steamers before mentioned, carries the
passenger from Canton to Macao. The mouth
of the river is cleared in four hours, and the
rest of the voyage is over an open sea, which,
with a fresh southerly breeze, is rather rough for
a flat-bottomed steamer: the islands to eastward,
though numerous, being too remote to check
the swell of the Chinese ocean. After running
for about an hour along the bold rocky
peninsula, at the point of which Macao is built,
the steamer rounds in, and, entering a partially
land-locked harbour between the town and
some rocky islets to its south, anchors in smooth
water. The town has a quaint picturesque
look. Its old-fashioned houses extend to the
water's edge. They are all of stone or
brick, covering the face of the bold coast: the
heights of which are crowned by castles, forts,
batteries, and convents, from whose ancient
walls the last rays of a setting sun were fading
as we entered the harbour. The inhabitants are
entirely Portuguese, Chinese, and a breed
between the two. The jealousy of the Portuguese
government effectually excludes foreigners from
settling; a miserable policy, by which trade is
almost extinct, the revenue being derived chiefly
from licensing of gambling-houses. In front of
the house of the governor I saw a guard of
soldiers. They were able-bodied, smart-looking
young fellows, in neat blue uniforms, detailed
from a regiment in the fort. These soldiers,
and a few half-castes, looking like our office
keranies in India, together with some strangely-
dressed females, in appearance half aya, half
sister of charity, were all that I saw of the
Portuguese community. The non-military
Portuguese looked jaded and lazy, almost every
man with a cheroot in his mouth. The town,
indeed, struck me as a very "Castle of
Indolence."

A SOBER ROMANCE.

I. MAY MORNING IN LONDON.

A SLIGHT shower, fretful and quick as the
anger of a coquette, had just washed the pavement
till it had become shining as a huge
looking-glass. The slates and tiles on millions of
house-roofs were glistening like gold. In solitary
puddles the London sparrows were flashing
and pruning themselves as if they were dressing
for a party, while in the quieter alleys the
London boys were making little cocked-hat
boats of paper, and launching them on the brimming
gutters with all the hope and enjoyment
of future Columbuses. Butcher-boys in blue,
excited by the reappearance of sunshine, dashed
down hot streets with their horned trays on
their shoulders, as if their customers would die
of starvation if the joint were three minutes late.
The cabs, which the shower had sent flying to and
fro, had passed away into the suburbs, or had
relapsed to the quietude of their customary rank
and stand. The cascades of ribbons in the
milliners' windows, now attired for the day
streamed with gay colours, brighter than ever
in the restored sunbeams that shot in through
cracks of the striped awnings. The crowd,
gathering courage, began again to collect round
the Italian boy with the performing monkey by
the railings of St. Paul's. Again the costermonger
steered his cart, full of flowering geraniums
and pinks, hopefully between the Juggernaut
Pickford vans and the ponderous West-end
omnibuses. Above Bow church a great field of
pure blue sky floated between the rolling icebergs
of white cumulus clouds, like a huge imperial
banner, for, the blue being in the minority, the
white seemed sky and the blue cloud.

It had just struck twelve by St. Paul's— a fact
which the clock of that church insisted on with
sluggish emphasis— when the Colchester coach,
on its way to Lad-lane, dashed through the
eastward concourse of drays, cabs, vans, and
carts, and drew up suddenly at the corner of
St. Margaret-lane, which, as every citizen of
London knows, is close to the old George the
Second's church of St. Margaret-Moses.

The coachman drew up his four bays smartly
and with an air, rejoiced to have got through
his journey; and the guard, to keep up the
spirit of the thing, gave a jovial flourish on his
horn, just to let people know the Colchester
coach was no common coach, but a real
high-flyer, and no two words about it.

The guard got down and tumbled a plain
corded box out of the boot, and then a bundle
tied up in a red and yellow handkerchief, and
then, looking up at a pretty modest fresh-
looking country girl, who sat contentedly next
the coachman, holding a great tuft of May
blossom, called out:

"Now then, Susan, my love, here you are!
Take care how you get down; I'll catch you.
Don't hurry, my girl, but look alive!"

"O dear! guard, am I there, then, and is this
Margaret-lane?" said the prepossessing young
woman, wishing the coachman good-by, and
getting nimbly and modestly down, aided by the
robust arms of the gallant guard.

"No. 16 it is, my dear. Good-by, Susan,"
cried the coachman; "I'll tell mother to-morrow
you got all safe. Jem'll run with the box. Look
alive, Jem! Peacock wants her oats. You'll find
us at the Swan-with-Two-Necks. Whist! my
beauties! Hey there, Peacock, gently!" Crick,
crack.

Poor Susan! She gave a tearful stare at the
receding coach, as if it were the last link that
bound her to Colchester, and then turned and
followed the guard up the dingy and narrow
lane, where her new master resided. I refer to
Mr. Josiah Dobb, grocer, wholesale and retail,
and for thirty years church warden of the wealthy
parish of St. Margaret-Moses.

"Put a good heart on it, Susan, gal," said the
guard, as he shook hands with his charge. "It
always seems strange a bit at first in a new
place; but Mr. Dobbs is a kind old fellow as
ever breathed, though they say he does hold on
to the money. Good-by, Susan— God bless 'ee.
Be a good girl— you'll soon shake down. If I