The broker to whom Mr. Fogg addressed himself knew the man for whom he was inquiring, but he had left China two years before, and gone to live in Holland, he thought; for he had principally traded with Dutch merchants. Phileas Fogg returned to the hotel, and informed Mrs. Aouda that her cousin had left Hong Kong, and had gone to live in Holland. Mrs. Aouda made no reply for a moment; she passed her hand across her brow, and appeared lost in thought. At length, in a gentle voice, she said, "What ought I to do, Mr. Fogg?" "Your course is simple enough," he replied; "come on to Europe." "But I cannot intrude upon you." "You do not intrude in the least. Passe-partout." "Sir." "Go to the _Carnatic_ and secure three berths." Passe-partout was delighted to think that the young lady was going to continue her journey with them, for she had been very kind to him. He accordingly quitted the hotel to execute his master's orders cheerfully. CHAPTER XIX. Showing how Passe-partout took too great an interest in his Master, and what came of it. Hong Kong is only an island, which fell into the possession of the English by the Treaty of Nankin, in 1843. In a few years the colonising enterprise of the British made of it an important city and a fine port--Victoria. The island is at the mouth of the Canton river, sixty miles only from Macao, upon the opposite bank. Hong Kong has beaten the other port in the struggle for commercial supremacy, and the greater traffic in Chinese merchandise finds its way to the island. There are docks, hospitals, wharfs, warehouses, a cathedral, a Government house, macadamised roads, &c., which give to Hong Kong as English an aspect as a town in Kent or Surrey, which had by some accident fallen to the antipodes. Passe-partout, with his hands in his pockets, wandered towards Port Victoria, gazing at the people as they passed, and admiring the palanquins and other conveyances. The city appeared to him like Bombay, Calcutta, and Singapore; or like any other town colonised by the English. At the port situated at the mouth of the Canton river was a regular confusion of ships of all nations, commercial and warlike: junks, sempas, tankas, and even flower-boats, like floating garden-borders. Passe-partout remarked several of the natives, elderly men, clothed in nankeen; and when he went to a barber's to be shaved, he inquired of the man, who spoke pretty good English, who they were, and was informed that these men were all eighty years of age, and were therefore permitted to wear the imperial colour, namely yellow. Passe-partout, without exactly knowing why, thought this very funny. After being shaved, he went to the quay from which the _Carnatic_ was to start, and there he found Fix walking up and down, in a very disturbed manner.