vegetables are often salt, and resemble sour kraut; the pork is too fat, and the salt fish is frequently in a state of decay. Bean-paste also—a frequent article among the poor—cannot be too strongly condemned; nor is it redeemed by the fact that it is in much use among the holy men of the Buddhist monasteries, for they have a decided preference for “vegetables of the sea.” At Ma-hum I got a small empty cottage to sleep in, with only the company of a _phoong quei_, or “wind box,” used for preparing corn, and exactly the same in construction and appearance as the “fanners” which used to be employed in Scottish barns. My trip, so far as it was by land, ended next day at Nam-tow, the district capital, a large walled town of, I should think, not less than a hundred thousand souls. This place had been bombarded about eighteen months before by our gunboats, in consequence of the mandarins stopping the supplies of Hong-Kong, and withdrawing the native servants; so I was rather afraid of being mobbed, or otherwise ill-treated, if I delayed in it, or turned on my footsteps when looking for the passage-boat to Hong-Kong. Even when there is no positive danger, a Chinese mob is rather trying to a solitary European; but China is a civilised country, and fortunately there were two boats and competition. The consequence of this was, that the touter of one of them waylaid us about a mile and a half from the town, and led me direct to his junk, in which I at once embarked, to the disappointment of the crowd which had begun to gather upon our heels.