of boiling water. On went the travellers, over
bare, frozen mountains, whose summits were in
the clouds. The beasts dragged on with bleeding
feet. The men were too rnuch occupied
with the fantastic scene to care for their toil!
They crossed the Yellow River again, and
dipped into China, resting now at the Hotel
of Justice and Mercy, and again at the Inn of
the Five Felicities, to obtain strength to
proceed at all. Then again through the Great
Wall, which stretched out and away over the
hills, and on to the brink of the Blue Sea—
the vast expanse, three hundred miles in
circumference, whose waters are like those of
the sea, and exhibit tides with the same
regularity, sequestered as it is in the heart of the
largest continent of our globe. Our
travellers have leisure for a joke at the " fiddle-
faddle shepherds of Virgil," twining flowers
and piping through reeds, in contrast with
the bearded, well-armed, stalwart shepherds
who guard their flocks from the brigands on
the margin of the Blue Sea.

The signs of Buddhist worship multiply as
the priests advance towards Lla-Ssa, where
they hope to see the Grand Lama, and to do
great things. There are mountains to cross
which can be attempted only in company with
a caravan; so they dwell in a Lamasery, among
priests and students, till the great caravan
arrives; and every day the likeness between
their own faith and that which they are come
to overthrow grows upon them, and fills them
with hope and new courage. And they have
need of all the courage that can be had. Their
track over the huge mountain chain is strewn
as they go with frozen beasts, and with not a
few bodies of men, who cannot be warmed,
and must die as they fall. M. Gabet survived
with difficulty, and only by the incessant care
of his comrades. Brigands were on the watch,
and there was a battle. There was a region
of foul air among the mountains, which it
required the most determined courage to get
through; and the same may be said of the
snow-drifts which overtook the caravan. As
soon as they got down to the grass again,
there was a fire in the camp; and in the first
town there was a population of thieves, which
left no hope of repose to the traveller. The
hearts of the missionaries do not appear to
have drooped; but that of the reader does, till
he finds that Lla-Ssa is now not far off.

They did get there at last, then? Yes, they
did. And how was it with them when they
had reached their goal? They did not see
the Grand Lama. The fear was that—(the
priests have written it, so we may)—this god
incarnate should catch the small-pox, which
was known to have been in the caravan. But
all else seemed to go well. The missionaries
were protected and honoured by the Thibetian
authorities, and the priests of Buddha, high
and low. They set up their crucifix, and
dressed their altar, and put on their sacred
garments, and felt that their work was so well
begun as to be half done. Their hearts were
singing for joy when the devil overthrew their
work—the devil in the shape of our old
enemy, the Chinese Commissioner, Ki-Chan,
who was Viceroy of Canton when the war
broke out, and who failed in his negociations
for peace with the English. This able man
was recovering from his disgraces in 1846,
and was envoy at Lla-Ssa when the missionaries
arrived there. In order to please his
Emperor, who could not relish having
Europeans beyond his frontier in the heart of
Asia, Ki-Chan determined that the strangers
should leave Lla-Ssa. The grieved Thibetians
had no power to resist. They could only
testify their good-will by every method, open
or secret (but especially secret), that they
could devise. The missionaries could not
obtain leave to shape their journey by the
way of Calcutta; but they were conveyed with
as much convenience and honour as could be
commanded by the long route to China and
through it. For the sake of their faith and
its future prospects (they say), they battled
stoutly for their dignity and convenience:
and when they had obtained it, they enjoyed
it with the glee of a couple of school-boys, out
on a half-holiday. The first part of the
journey, over the mountain region which
guards the Chinese frontier, was necessarily
formidable—full of danger and hardship.
Once in China, they called for their
palankeens, and travelled luxuriously, at the public
expense, across the whole breadth of China.

They never gave up;—never thought of
this interruption as more than a suspension of
their mission. And they were right. They
are gone back to their work, after having
sent a spirited appeal to their own government,
and undergone an examination before
the Grand Mandarins of the Celestial Empire.

"WHO MURDERED DOWNIE?"

About the end of the eighteenth century, whenever any student of the Marischal College, Aberdeen, incurred the displeasure of the humbler citizens, he was assailed with the question, "Who murdered Downie?" Reply and rejoinder generally brought on a collision between " town and gown; " although the young gentlemen were accused of what was chronologically impossible. People have a right to be angry at being stigmatised as murderers, when their accusers have probability on their side; but the "taking off" of Downie occurred when the gownsmen, so maligned, were in swaddling clothes.

But there was a time, when to be branded as an accomplice in the slaughter of Richard Downie, made the blood run to the cheek of many a youth, and sent him home to his books, thoughtful and subdued. Downie was sacrist or janitor at Marischal College. One of his duties consisted in securing the gate by a certain hour; previous to which all the students had to assemble in the common hall, where a Latin prayer was delivered by the