Whilst at anchor, awaiting the tide to cross the outer bar, our attendant pilot boat came to grief under our bows. Everybody who knows anything of Chinese rivers--of the Yangtsze in particular--will have often remarked how great a velocity the current attains at near low water, making boating alongside a ship an almost impossible and extremely hazardous proceeding. The water hisses, seethes, and boils past the sides as if the ship was under weigh in a heavy sea; thus when the little vessel reached our bows there was nothing to save her. Fortunately she came down upon us in such a manner that she escaped with the loss of mainmast and sail, whilst a little damage was done to our head-gear in the scrimmage. November 30th.--Again the well-known rig of the Canton fishing junks heaves in sight, and ere long the equally well-known outline of Victoria Peak, the most welcome sight on the station, after all said and done. In a few hours that prince of bumboat men, old Attam, had paid us a visit, giving us a kindly welcome, with his good-tempered, ever-smiling, and flat celestial face. December 20th.--To-day at noon the flying squadron came in from the northward. Their arrival was awaited by eager and expectant crowds thronging the shore, in anticipation of witnessing the landing of the young royal middies. In this they were disappointed. The same absence of ceremony and reserve was to be observed here, with respect to the queen's grandsons, as was recently followed out in Shanghai, and which gave so much umbrage to the residents of that city. It was soon officially known that whilst staying at Hong Kong, the princes would be publicly recognised simply as "mids." The Europeans and other foreign residents were quite prepared to do the honors handsomely, had things been ordered differently. These shortcomings were however amply compensated for by the magnificence of the Chinamen. It did not signify to them as to _how_ the princes were to be treated; to them they were the queen's grandsons, midshipmen or not. The two nights immediately preceding Christmas Day were devoted to the grandest display of fireworks and illuminations I have ever witnessed, and which, possibly, few men see but once in a lifetime. All accounts of China agree that in the pyrotechnic art the Chinese stand alone, unequalled. We have all, no doubt, been struck when reading of the wonderful changes of form assumed by their fireworks in the air. This, like many other descriptions about this people, is rather misleading. What actually does take place I will endeavour to show; only bear in mind the most perfect description must fall far short of the startling reality.