IN LORD ELGIN. (Concluded.) N Jamaica Lord Elgin had become acquainted with a Planter Colony; in Canada he had become acquainted with a free and self-governed Colony. In China, to enlarge still further the circle of his Colonial experience, he was to become acquainted with what might be called-with regard to a portion at least of its inhabitants-a filibustering Colony. The relations of nations styling themselves civilized with barbarous or semi-barbarous populations, fill one of the darkest pages of the history of mankind in general, and of British history in particular. And, perhaps, on that dark page there is nothing of deeper hue than the record of British opium-smugglers and kidnappers in China. "Unless I am greatly misinformed," says Lord Elgin, in replying to an address from some missionaries, “vile and reckless men, protected by the privileges to which I have referred, and still more by the terror which British prowess has inspired, are now infesting the coasts of China. It may be that for the moment they are able, in too many cases, to perpetrate the worst crimes with impunity; but they bring discredit on the Christian name; inspire hatred of the foreigner, where no such hatred exists; and, as some recent instances prove, teach occasionally to the natives a lesson of vengeance which, when once learnt, may not always be applied with discrimination." "It is a terrible business,” he says, in another place, "this living among inferior races. I have seldom, from men or women, since I came into the East, heard a sentence which was reconcilable with the hypothesis that Christianity had ever come into the world. Detestation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether China men or Indians be the object. There are some three or four hundred servants in this house. When one first passes by their salaaming, one feels a little awkward. But the feeling soon wears off, and one moves among them with perfect indifference, treating them not, as dogs, because in that case we would whistle to them and pat them, but as machines with which one can have no communion or sympathy. Of course those who can speak the language are somewhat more en rapport with the natives, but very slightly so, I take it. When the passions of fear and hatred are engrafted on this indifference, the result is frightful-an absolute callousness as to the sufferings of the objects of their passions, which must be witnessed to be understood and believed." Is it very wonderful that, under such circumstances, missionary enterprise does not make more progress among the natives? Is there not, in fact, a need of missionary enterprise in another direction? The event which led to the rupture with China, and finally to a revolution in our relations with that country, and in the policy of the Chinese Government, are too well known to require minute recapitulation. The Lorcha Arrow, a pretended British vessel, was boarded by the Chinese on a charge of piracy. The British on the spot seized the occasion for a quarrel, and, finding arms in their hands, took the opportunity of enforcing what they styled treaty obligations, and bombarded Canton. There was no doubt, in Lord Elgin's mind at all events, as to the character of the transaction. "I have hardly alluded," he says, " in my ultimatum to that wretched question of the Arrow, which is a scandal to us, and is so considered, I have reason to know, by all except the few who are personally compromised." In another passage, he distinctly intimates his conviction that the Arrow was one of a class of vessels which fraudulently carried the British flag for the purpose of levying piratical exactions on the junks. The House of Commons passed a vote of censure against the Government; but the feelings engendered by the Crimean war were still dominant in the nation; and an appeal to the country, by the dissolution of Parliament, resulted in a complete triumph for Lord Palmerston and the Arrow. Lord Elgin, during the two years of his residence at home, had given a general support to the Government, and the qualities which he had displayed in Canada pointed him out as the right man to be sent to China. The choice proved a most happy one: he secured the diplomatic objects of his mission with the least possible infringement of the laws of humanity; and, by his whole conduct and bearing, did much to redeem the tarnished honour of his country. Fortunately for us he kept a pretty regular journal, and he has thus enabled us to see countries which he visited, the people with whom he came in contact, and the events in which he bore the leading part, through the eyes of a clear-sighted, sagacious, and rightHis command of language was also remarkable, and he had great descriptive power. He went, of course, by the Overland route. Passing through Egypt, he says, "What might not be made of this country, if it were wisely guided. "I am glad to have had two days in Egypt. It gave me an idea, at least, of that country-in some degree a painful one. I suppose that France and England, by their mutual jealousies, will be the means of perpetuating the abominations of the system under which that magnificent country is ruled. They say that the Pacha's revenue is about £4,000,000, and his expenses about £2,000,000: so that he has about £2,000,000 of pocket money. Yet I suppose that the Fellahs, owing to their industry and the incom parable fertility of the country, are not badly off, as compared with the peasantry elsewhere. We passed, at one of our stopping places between Cairo and Suez, part of a Turkish regiment on their way to Jeddah. These men were dressed in a somewhat European costume, some of them with the Queen's medal on their breast. There was a harem in a sort of omnibus with them, containing the establishment of one of the officers. One of the ladies dropped her veil for a moment, and I saw rather a pretty face; almost the only Mahommedan female face I have seen since I reached this continent. They are much more rigorous, it appears, with the ladies in Egypt than at Constantinople. There they wear a veil which is quite transparent, and go about shopping ; but in Egypt they seem to go out very little, and their veil completely hides everything but the eyes. In the palace which I visited near Cairo (and which the Pacha offered, if we had chosen to take it), I looked through some of the grated windows allowed in the harems, and I suppose that it must require a good deal of practice to see comfortably out of them. It appears that the persons who ascend to the top of the minarets to call to prayer at the appointed hours, are blind men, and that the blind are selected for this office lest they should be able to look down into the harems. That is, certainly, carrying caution very far." He arrives at Ceylon, and is charmed with its greenness and beauty, its luxuriant vegetation, its bright nights, and the brilliant phosphorescence of its seas. He takes a ride into the interior, and finds one of the most magnificent views he ever witnessed-in the foreground this tropical luxuriance, and beyond, far below, the glistening sea, studded with ships and boats innumerable, over which again the Malay peninsula, with its varied outline. He "I had hardly begun to admire the scene, when a gentleman in a blue flannel sort of dress, with a roughish beard, and a cigar in his mouth, made his appearance, and was presented to me as the Bishop of Labuan! He was there endeavouring to recruit his health, which has suffered a good deal. complained of the damp of the climate, while admitting its many charms, and seemed to think that he owed to the dampness a bad cold with which he was afflicted. Soon afterwards his wife joined us. They were both at Sarawak when the last troubles took place, and must have had a bad time of it. The Chinese behaved well to them; indeed they seemed desirous to make the bishop their leader. His con verts (about fifty) were staunch; and he has a school at which about the same number of Chinese boys are educated. These facts pleaded in his favour, and it says something for the Chinese that they were not insensible to these claims. They committed some cruel acts, but they certainly might have committed more. They respected the women, except one (Mrs. C., whom they wounded severely), and they stuck by the bishop until they found that he was trying to bring Brooke back. They then turned upon him, and he had to run for his life. The bishop gave me an interesting description of his school of Chinese boys. He says they are much more like English boys than other Orientals; that when a new boy comes they generally get up a fight, and let him earn his place by his prowess. But there is no managing them without pretty severe punishments. Indeed, he says, that if a boy be in fault, the others do not at all like his not being well punished; they seem to think that it is an injustice to the rest if this is omitted." at dinner, the fact that Government had removed some commissioners who, not content with hanging all the rebels they could lay their hands on, had been insulting them by destroying their caste, telling them that after death they should be cast to the dogs to be devoured, &c., was mentioned. A reverend gentleman could not understand the conduct of Government; could not see any impropriety in torturing men's souls; seemed to think that a good deal might be said in favour of bodily torture as well! These are your teachers, O Israel! Imagine what the pupils become under such leading!" In the midst of the beauties of Ceylon, however, Lord Elgin received the terrible news of the Indian mutiny, with urgent calls from Lord Canning for aid. With a moral courage, and a self-sacrifice really commendable, though, perhaps, rated rather too highly by his friendly biographer, Lord Elgin despatched to India the troops destined for his own support in China. At first he hoped that these troops might be speedily restored to him; but, finding that this would not be the case, and feeling that if he remained at Hong-Kong without the means of doing anything he would damage the position of England with the Chinese, he resolved himself to go to Calcutta. arrival there in the Shannon, in the midst of in my cabin, as usual, till after five, when I ordered His the awful crisis, called forth great enthusiasm. "I shall never forget," he said, "to my dying day for the hour was a dark one, and there was hardly a countenance in Calcutta save that of the Governor-General, Lord Canning, which was not blanched with fear I shall never forget the cheers with which the Shannon was received, as she sailed up the river, pouring forth her salute from those sixty-eight pounders which the gallant and lamented Sir William Peel sent up to Allahabad, and from those twenty Fresh troops arriving for China, Lord Elgin proceeded to Hong-Kong, where he at once experienced the caprices of the Chinese climate. "I wish," he says, "I could send you a sketch of that gloomy hill, at the foot of which Victoria lies, as it loomed sullenly in the dusky morning, its crest wreathed with clouds, and its cheeks wrinkled by white lines that marked the track of the descending torrents." "The weather cleared about noon. I remained my boat and went on shore. There were signs of the night's work here and there. Masts of junks sticking out of the water, and on land verandahs mutilated, &c. Loch accompanied me, and we walked up the hill to a road which runs above the town. The prospect was magnificent-Victoria below us, running down the steep bank to the water's edge; beyond, the bay crowded with ships and junks, and closed on the opposite side by a semicircle of hills, bold, rugged and bare, and glaring in the bright sunset. When we got beyond the town, the hill along which we were walking began to remind me of some of the scenery in the Highlands-steep and treeless, the water gushing out at every step 350 among the huge granite boulders, and dashing, with a merry noise, across our path. After somewhat more than an hour's walk we turned back, and be gan to descend a long and precipitous path, or rather street-for there were houses on either side-in search of our boat. By the time we had embarked the hues of the sunset had vanished, a moon, nearly full, rode undisputed mistress in the cloudless sky, and we cut Our way to our ship through the ripple that was dancing and sparkling in her beams.” The descriptions of scenery in the journal are excellent, and show that, beneath the practical statesman, there lay a good deal of the poet. A "Head-Quarters, House, Hong Kong, Nov. 22nd. -I wish you could take wings and join me here, if it were even for a few hours. We should first wander through these spacious apartments. We should then stroll out on the verandah, or along the path of the little terrace garden, which General Ashburnham has surrounded with a defensive wall; and from thence I should point out to you the harbour, bright as a flower bed with the flags of many nations, the jutting promontory of Korsloom, and the barrier of bleak and jagged hills that bound the prospect. little later, when the sun began to sink, and the long shadows to fall from the mountain's side, we should set forth for a walk along a level pathway of about a quarter of a mile long, which is cut in its flank, and connects with this garden. From thence we should watch this same circle of hills, now turned into a garland, and glowing in the sunset lights, crimson and purple, and blue and green, and colours for which a name has not yet been found, as they successively lit upon them. Perhaps we should be tempted to wait (and it could not be long to wait, for the night follows in these regions very closely on the heels of day), until, on these self-same hills, then gloomy and dark and sullen, tens of thousands of bright and silent stars were looking down calmly from Heaven." But other work than gazing on the scenery and the stars was at hand. Lord Elgin sent in his demands to the Chinese Governor, Yeh. "I made them," he says, "as moderate as possible, so as to give him a chance of accepting although, if he had accepted, I know that I should have brought on my head the imprecations both of the navy and army, and of the civilians, the time being given by the missionaries and the women. And now, Yeh having refused, I shall do what ever I possibly can to secure the adoption of plans of attack, &c., which will lead to the least destruction of life and property ** The weather is charming: the thermometer about 60° in the shade in the morning: the sun powerful, and the atmosphere beautifully clear. When we steamed up to Canton, and saw the rich alluvial banks covered with the luxuriant evidences of unrivalled industry and natural fertility combined; beyond, the barren uplands, sprinkled with soil of a reddish tint, which gave them the appearance of heather slopes in the Highlands; and beyond these again, the white cloud mountain range, standing out, bold and blue, in the clear sunshine, I thought bitterly of those who, for the most selfish objects, are trampling under foot this ancient civilization." The miserable people of Canton were already suffering deeply from what Lord Elgin calls "this horrid war." The Admiral having sent on shore some casks of damaged biscuit, there was such a rush for it that some people were drowned. The ships were surrounded by boats filled with women, who picked up orange peel and offal. One of the gun-boats having got ashore, the officer coolly ordered the Chinese on the quays to pull her off, which they did. "Fancy," says Lord Elgin, "having to fight such people!" He fought them, in pursuance of his recorded resolution, as humanely as possible, but very little to the contentment of the "civilized" community, of which he was the representative. "The truth is that the whole world, just now, is raving mad with a passion for killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person in his sober senses, like myself, to hold his own among them." People wanted "what is styled a vigorous policy in China; in other words, a policy which consists in resorting to the most violent measures of coercion or repression, on the slenderest provocation." "The settlement here (at Swatow), is against treaty. It con sists, mainly, of agents of the two great opium houses, Dent and Jardine, with their hangers-on. This, with a considerable business in the coolie trade-which consists in kidnapping wretched coolies, putting them on board ships, where all the horrors of the slave trade are reproduced, and sending them, on specious promises, to such places. as Cuba-is the chief business of the 'foreign' merchants at Swatow." These worthies did not, by any means, want China opened to fair trade. What they wanted was a privileged monopoly of smuggling and kidnapping, protected by British guns. Lord Elgin's general testimony is strongly in favour of the Chinese, in their relations with foreigners, provided the foreigners behave well to them. "I have made it a point," he says, "whenever I have met missionaries or others who have penetrated into the interior from Ningpo and Shanghai, to ask them what treatment they experienced in those expeditions, and the answer has almost invariably been that, at points remote from those to which foreigners have access, there was no diminution, but, on the contrary, rather an enhancement of the courtesy exhibited towards them by the natives." He gives more than one instance of prejudiced misconstruction of the conduct of these unfortunate people, and of the ignorant and unsympathizing insolence with which they are treated by Europeans. "I heard that in the Western suburb (of Canton), the people looked 'ill-natured,' so I have been, the greater part of my last two days, in that suburb, looking in vain into faces to discover these menacing indications. Yesterday, I walked through very out-of-the-way streets, and crowded thoroughfares, with Wade and two sailors, through thousands and thousands, with out a symptom of disrespect. ** * I know that our people for a long time used to insist on every Chinaman they met taking his hat off. Of course it rather astonished a respectable Chinese shop-keeper to be poked in the ribs by a sturdy sailor or soldier, and told in bad Chinese, or in pantomime, to take off his hat, which is a thing they never do, and which is not with them even a mark of respect. I only mention this as an instance of the follies which people commit, when they know nothing of the manners of those with whom they have to deal." At Canton, Lord Elgin visited two of the prisons, and found them in a very bad state. The condition of the inmates of one cell was appalling. The authorities offered excuses connected with the bombardment. But the cruelty of the criminal law is one of the things which clearly stamp the imperfect character of Chinese civilization. After leaving Canton, Lord Elgin paid a visit to Chusan, which he calls a charming island, and wonders how people could have preferred Hong-Kong. From Chusan he visited a Buddhist monastery in the islet of Potou. "We entered the buildings, which were like all the Buddhistic temples-the same images, &c.— and were soon surrounded by crowds of the most filthy and miserable looking bonzes, some clad in grey, and some in yellow. All were very civil, however, and on the invitation of the superior-who had a much more intelligent look than the rest—we went into an apartment at the side of the temple and had some tea. After a short rest we proceeded on our way, and mounted a hill about one thousand five hundred feet in height, passing by some more temples on the way. I never saw human beings apparently in a lower condition than those bonzes, though some of the temples were under repair, and, on the whole, tolerably cared for. The view from the top of the hill was magnificent, and there was glorious music here and there, from the sea rolling in upon the sandy beach. We met some women (nct young ones) going up the hill, in chairs, to worship at the temples, and found in the temples some individuals at their devotions. In one there was a mork hidden behind a great drum, repeating in a plaintive tone, over and over again, the name of Buddha, 'ameta fo,' or something like that sound. I observed some lumps on the forehead, evidently produced by knocking it against the ground. The utter want of respect of these people for their temples, coupled with this asceticism, and apparent self-sacrifice in their religion, is a combination which I cannot at present understand. It has one bad effect, that, in the plundering expeditions which we Christians dignify with |