Then the sweet scents and beauteous sight tired Nicholas, for he thought of the suffering, starving people. Surely it should not be possible for such a paradise to exist in the midst of so much treason and rotten-heartedness, and then the bold sea boy thought of his own rough life, and became disgusted with himself for dwelling upon so much sensuousness, for he knew that the empire had never smiled and prospered with a happy, peaceable and well-fed people, except when the Emperor had set the example of temperance and labor; and, moreover, that luxury and indolence had ever preceded the downfall of dynasties; and then by far more interesting became the cotton, the tallow and the mulberry-trees that Heaven had bestowed upon the land of China for the support of its hundreds of millions, and which had no vocation in such a garden of luxury. As it must be interesting to my young readers, I will give a description of these singularly valuable trees. The seed of the cotton shrub is sown by the husbandmen on the same day that they get in the harvest. When the rain has moistened the earth the shrub thrusts itself forward to a height of about two feet, and in the month of August gives forth a yellow or a red flower, which fades into a pod, which on the fortieth day after the appearance of the flower divides itself into three parts, each containing a wrapping of pure white cotton, similar in size to the ball of the silk-worm. At this period, the husbandmen fasten the ball to the pod, leaving it till the following year, when the fibres of the cotton become so securely fastened to the seeds, that the husbandman is compelled to separate them by means of two thin rollers, one of wood and the other of iron, placed so close to each other, that in passing the cotton between them, the naked seed is exuded from behind. The cotton is then carded and ready to be converted into calico, an employment that gives food to many thousands of people. Of equal value and more curious is the tallow-tree, which lights the whole of the empire. While the leaves and long stalks of this plant cause it to resemble the aspen and the birch, its trunk and branches resemble in shape, height, and size the cherry-tree. From the grey bark, spring long elastic branches, the leaves of which grow but from the middle to the end, where they finish in a tuft, where the fruit grows in a hard brown husk of triangular form. The husk generally contains three kernels, covered with a thin substance resembling white tallow. When the husk begins to open and fall away, the fruit gradually appears. Each kernel contains another of the size of a hemp seed, which from its oleaginous nature is converted into oil.