Departure from Manila. — Off the Chinese Coast. 351 



new" material relating to the Philippines and their inhabit- 

 ants, and left us with the agreeable prospect of a permanent 

 exchange of literary and scientific labours. 



At one A. M. of the 25th June we weighed anchor in the 

 harbour of Cavite, on our voyage to the Em^iire of China. 

 The land breeze, which sets in regularly every night, carried 

 us clear out of the Bay of Manila, but in the open sea out- 

 side we found, contrary to expectation, instead of the S.W. 

 monsoon, light variable winds and calms, which materially 

 interfered with our progress. At last, when we were about 

 mid-way across the China Sea, we fell in with the long- 

 looked for S.W. wind, which speedily wafted us to the next 

 station we were to visit, the British colony of Hong-kong, 

 or Victoria. With favourable winds the voyage from Ma- 

 nila to Hong-kong, a distance of about 700 nautical miles, 

 is four or five days' sail ; owing to the constant contrary 

 winds we were double that time. 



Already, before we came in sight of land, a Chinese fishing 

 vessel had put a pilot on board in the shape of a long-tailed 

 son of the Celestial Emj)ire, who jabbered English in a fashion 

 to set the hair on end, and was lost in wonder at our flag, 

 which he had never before seen. We afterwards found that 

 the dialect used by our pilot was what is called Canton- 

 English, such as is spoken by all Chinese who have dealings 

 with the British, and consisting exclusively of a most ludi- 

 crous distortion of the commonest English phrases. 



About noon on the 4th July we sighted the Chinese coast ; 



