The practice is more fascinating than the use of intoxicating drinks, and more easily glides into excess. Of teachers in China, unfortunately for them, there is an immense supply owing to the number of disappointed candidates at the competitive examinations for the Government service. In this Chin-wan schoolhouse I met a fat man who had been in Hong-Kong, and spoke a little English. If there was any self-approval in my air in telling him that I had walked over the hills, it met with a speedy and severe check, for he immediately said—“Eiya! Hab walkee! allo same one coolie.” This was complimentary, but I had my revenge; for the fat man told me that he was a gentleman living at his ease, whereas I discovered him, early next morning, in a butcher’s shop, with his sleeves tucked up dissecting a fat pig, into whose entrails he staggered on my finding him, and exclaiming, “Hulloa! Allo same one butcher.” It is due to the Chinese, however, to state, that very few of them are ashamed of, or attempt to conceal, their occupations. Hitherto I had been trifling with the excursion, but next day Aheung knew by our starting early that we were in for work; and deep gloom came over his countenance when he saw the direction I was taking up the Chin-wan or Talshan Valley, towards an old and totally unfrequented path which leads over a shoulder of the Tai-mon shan, or “Great Hat Mountain.” No part of the Scotch Highlands presents a more picturesque appearance than the upper part of this valley, so plentifully are the small pines scattered about, so deep the pools, so wild the stream, so huge and fantastic the shattered rocks. The Great Hat Mountain, over a lower portion of which we go, is about 4000 feet high, and terraced up to the very top, showing it was cultivated at some former period; but now it is entirely without habitations, and covered with long rank grass of the coarsest kind, which forms a serious obstacle to the ascent. I got up to the top once, with great difficulty, and was rewarded by a magnificent panorama of sea and islands, mountains and plains. Even Canton could be seen in the distance; the villages looked as if they could be counted by hundreds, and every island was fringed round with numerous junks and fishing-boats. Considering that the country round is one of the most sparsely populated parts of China, the innumerable indications of human life were somewhat surprising. In conjunction with what I have seen in more thickly habitated parts of China, such as the valleys of the great rivers, I incline to think that the numbers given by the last census which I know of as available were certainly not above the truth. It was taken about 1840, and the members of the Russian Legation at Peking, who had access to it, gave the entire population of the Chinese empire at 412 millions. An old legend regarding the Tai-mon is, that a proprietor and feudal chief in its neighbourhood gave protection and support to the sister of a dethroned Chinese emperor,