BY ORDER OF SHIH-KWANG-TI 209 48. A STREET IN PEKIN 214 49. NIGHT-WATCHMEN IN PEKIN 216 50. A CHINESE GENERAL IN HIS WAR-CHARIOT 220 51. PORCELAIN TOWER AT NANKING 222 52. MONOLITHS AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE TOMBS OF THE MING EMPERORS 231 53. CHINESE BRONZES 233 54. PORTRAIT OF ONE OF THE CHINESE EMPERORS OF THE CH'ING DYNASTY, PROBABLY KIEN-LONG 242 55. ONE OF THE REGENTS DURING THE MINORITY OF TUNG-CHE 249 56. A CHINESE SEDAN-CHAIR AND BEARERS 255 57. A BONZE TORTURING HIMSELF IN A TEMPLE, AFTER A CHINESE PAINTING 260 58. THE TOWN AND BRIDGE OF FUCHAN 265 CHINA AND THE CHINESE CHAPTER I The delight of exploring unknown lands--Saint Louis and the Tartars of olden times--The Anglo-French force enters Pekin--Terror of the "Red Devils"--The "Cup of Immortality"--The "Sons of Heaven"--Hong-Kong as it was and is--The Treaty of Tien-tsin--The game of "Morra"--First Tea-party in the Palace of Pekin--Chinese agriculture and love of flowers--Chinese literati--An awkward meeting between two of them--Love of poetry in China--Voltaire's letter to the poet-king--The Chinese army--The _Shu-King_, or sacred book of China--Yao and his work--Chung, the lowly-born Emperor--The Hoang-Ho, or "China's Sorrow"--Yu the engineer and his work--Chung chooses Yu to reign after him--The foundation of the hereditary monarchy in China. I do not deny the happiness of a life spent beneath the shadow of the belfry of one's native place, in all the unruffled peace of one's own home, surrounded by one's own family; but, after all, what are such joys as these compared to those of the explorer who goes forth to meet the unknown ready for all that may betide, making fresh discoveries at every turn, gladly facing all dangers and rejoicing in the ever-changing, ever-widening horizon before him? Who would care to forego the joys of memory, the power of living over again in old age the adventures of youth, of seeing once more with the mind's eye the wonders of the far-distant lands visited when the mind was still buoyant, the sight still undimmed, the limbs still in all the vigour of manhood? Happy mortal indeed is he who, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the discoverer, looks upon death itself not as the end of all things, but the threshold of a new world, the beginning of yet another journey fraught with the deepest interest, to a bourne all the more fascinating because of the deep mystery in which it is shrouded.