Accompanying the steamer in its usual route, Mr. Taylor stopped at Singapore, at the extreme southern end of the peninsula. It was a new port at that time, and was not so important as it afterwards became; yet he found ten or fifteen thousand people there, mostly dirty and repulsive Chinese. Mr. Taylor was not pleased with the Chinese as a race, for two reasons. First, he heard such reports of their barbarity, beastliness, and dishonesty; second, they were an awkward, unsymmetrical people, devoid of that physical beauty which the artist admires and copies. He dwelt upon the latter fact in his letters, and mentioned it in his book. Neither Phidias, Polycrates, Raphael, or Angelo would have selected a model from among these creatures, and naturally enough the artistic taste of Mr. Taylor was shocked by such natural deformities as the Chinese were, when looked upon with reference to the graceful and beautiful in the human form. It is but just to the Chinese as a nation to say that, according to the writer’s experience among them, the Coolies who emigrate to Singapore, Sydney, and California are by no means a fair sample of the educated and wealthy classes who remain at home and drive out the least useful and least intelligent portion. If one were to judge of the acquirements, ability, or physical beauty of the Chinese nation exclusively by the poor emigrants who cannot successfully compete with their neighbors, and hence are compelled to go away from home for success, he would be nearly as sadly misled as one would be should he form his opinion of the American people by the inmates of their jails and poor-houses. There are many noble men and beautiful women in the interior of China, whether regarded mentally, morally, or physically. Mr. Taylor did not see them, and like a faithful scribe he wrote down only those things he saw, and knew to be true. The Chinese whom he saw in the ports engaged in unloading vessels, or doing like menial services, were not beautiful, and he said so.