The guard of marines drawn up on either side highly astonished the Chinese, but the people were kept from pressing too close by a long line of railing put up for the occasion. The road from the immediate landing-place to the grand tent was spread over with various coloured cotton coverings, and decorated with branches of trees. At nine A.M., Captain Elliot, accompanied by Captain Herbert, and the Honourable Captain Dundas, landed, and went up in state, preceded by the bands, to the principal tent, which was very like a large long booth, ornamented inside with yellow hangings, in token of its belonging to the representative of the emperor. At the further extremity of it was another tent or apartment, reserved more especially for Keshen's private use, and into this only Captain Elliot and one or two officers in personal attendance on him were admitted. The whole party were presented to Keshen in the outer tent including Captain Rosamel of the Danaide; the list sent in the previous evening being referred to, as each gentleman of the party made his bow to the Imperial Commissioner. The first private audience in the inner tent between Captain Elliot and Keshen was merely one of ceremony, and lasted only a few minutes; the medium of communication being through Mr. Morrison, the interpreter, the gifted son of the late Dr. Morrison, so celebrated as a Chinese scholar and philologist. After the first introduction was over, it was announced that a grand _déjeûner à la fourchette_ was prepared in the outer tent for the whole of the party, upwards of twenty in number. Interminable was the succession of dishes of the rarest and most expensive kind, according to the best Chinese principles of gastronomy. The luxury of the shark's-fin and the bird's-nest soup was here tasted for the first time, and, without going deeply into the mysteries of the Chinese "cuisine," it will be sufficient to say that a Chinese feast is a very sumptuous and tedious, but, withal not unpalatable affair. It necessarily occupied considerable time, and it was not until two o'clock that those officers not in personal attendance upon Captain Elliot were able to return on board the steamers. In the interim, Keshen could not resist the wish to gratify his curiosity concerning our fine-looking fellows the marines, and three of the tallest and finest men were selected for his personal examination. He did not conceal his surprise, and even requested that they might be made to go through some of their evolutions. Keshen also examined their arms and accoutrements minutely. He had himself a small body-guard of Chinese soldiers, tolerably well dressed, but otherwise of poor appearance, compared with our own picked men, and they seemed quite at a loss to comprehend the purpose of the movements they witnessed.