'We do not know,' they said, 'what the book is about'; and therefore they could not tell me. They had read it? 'O yes; it was not a cookery book, nor a song book, nor a book about women; but seemed to be a pot of many things not well boiled.' There was no laughter, all was as serious as melancholy itself. I was a little disappointed, and came away without buying anything. It must require great gifts to be a missionary to the heathen, and especially the heathen Chinese. I should be inclined to think it to be as easy to bring a rich Chinaman to repentance as a rich Jew. The failure of my New Testament to make itself understood was a great blow to me. They might probably have understood some portions of the Book of Genesis better; but to my regret I had not the means of putting that to the test. The mention of the Old Testament reminds me of a trivial incident which occurred one night in a magnificent sala in Lima, where were a good sprinkling of Spanish-speaking gentlemen and ladies, Italians and Germans, I being the only Englishman present. In course of the conversation it was demanded by some one, what were the two creatures first to leave the Ark: and it was at once answered by several voices 'the dove and the deer.' This appeared rather unsound to me, and I questioned the statement. So hot did the debate become, that it ended in a willing bet of £20, when after some difficulty a Bible was procured, and the dove and the raven won. The consternation was great. One man was candid enough to confess that he was an ass of no small magnitude for not reflecting that under the circumstances it could not well be a deer; but he had heard that such was the case, and because it was in the Bible felt bound to believe it. Among all the classes of immigrants in Peru, or in Lima its capital, the English stand first and highest. They are certainly better represented than they were twenty years ago, but there is still much to improve. One great drawback to the English is the absence of a home, or the means of making one. The construction of the houses is one cause. There are no snug corners sacred to quiet and repose, and if the house be not a convent, it is something between a theatre and a furniture shop. Domestic servants are another fatal drawback, but the rent is the greatest of them all. The rents of some of the dingiest houses in the back streets are higher than those in Mayfair in the season, while the principal houses in the chief street are treble the amount. If I have elsewhere spoken sharply of my countrymen, it is because I think much of the land which gave them birth. It does not by any means follow that because a Peruvian child fifty years of age sells his soul to the devil, that an Englishman of four hundred should follow his example. It should be quite the other way.