386 Voyage of the Novara. 



the building", the noise of which gave much more the impres- 

 sion of an infernal machine than a salute. The rest of the 

 day the officers spent in reconnoitring various parts of the 

 city, as far as circumstances admitted, and all returned in the 

 evening to Hong-kong in the same gun-boat which had con- 

 veyed them to Canton. 



Wliile we were lying at anchor in Hong-kong, an extra 

 sheet of the " North China Herald^'''' published at Shanghai, 

 brought intelligence of a treaty of peace having been signed 

 at Tien-Tsin, by Lord Elgin, on the part of England, and the 

 Imperial Commissioners, and that it had been dispatched to 

 Pekin for the purpose of being ratified by the imperial auto- 

 graph. This treaty, which contained 6Q clauses, invested 

 England with far more extensive rights than she had hitherto 

 possessed. Especially it was stipulated that an English 

 ambassador should reside in a palace at Pekin, and be 

 accorded all the honours due to his rank, and that the 

 Christian religion should be professed and taught without 

 any restrictions. British subjects^ provided with passes from 

 their own consuls, to be countersigned by the local Chinese 

 authorities, were to be permitted to traverse the empire in 

 every direction on business or pleasure ; the navigation of the 

 Yang-tse-Kiang, or Blue River, was also declared free ; and 

 in addition to the five harbours already opened to foreign 

 commerce by the treaty of Nankin, the English were now to 

 be at liberty to trade with New-Chwang, Tang-Char, Tai- 

 Wan (on the island of Formosa), Chau-Chow, and Kiung- 



