694 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



caused in some degree by the difficulty of tearing ourselves 

 away after only a few days' stay from a people so remarkable, so 

 lovable, and so hospitable as the Japanese, and from a land so 

 magnificently endowed by nature. Besides, when the Vega was 

 again ready for sea, it was so near the time for the change of 

 the monsoon, that it was not advisable, and would not have been 

 attended with any saving of time, to sail immediately. For at 

 that season furious storms are wont to rage in these seas, and 

 the wind then prevailing is so unfavourable for sailing from 

 Japan to the southward, that a vessel with the weak steam- 

 power of the Vega cruising between Japan and Hong Kong 

 in a head-wind might readily have lost the days saved by an 

 earlier departure. On the other hand, in the end of October 

 and the beginning of November we could, during our passage 

 to Hong Kong, count on a fresh and always favourable breeze. 

 This took place too, so that, leaving Nagasaki on the 27th 

 October, we were able to anchor in the harbour of Hong Kong 

 as early as the 2nd November, 



There was of course no prospect of being able to accomplish 

 anything for the benefit of science during a few days' stay in 

 a region which had been examined by naturalists innumerable 

 times before, but I at all events touched at this harbour that I 

 might meet the expressed wish of one of the members of the 

 expedition not to leave eastern Asia without having, during the 

 voyage of the Vega, seen something of the so much talked of 

 " heavenly kingdom " so different from all other lands. 



For this purpose, however. Hong Kong is an unsuitable place. 

 This rich and flourishing commercial town, which has been 

 created by England's Chinese politics and opium trade, is a 

 British colony with a European stamp, which has little to show 

 of the original Chinese folk-life, although the principal part of 

 its population consists of Chinese. But at the distance of a 

 few hours by steamer from Hong Kong lies the large old 

 commercial city of Canton, which, though it has long been open 

 to Europeans, is still purely Chinese, with its peatstack-like 

 architecture, its countless population, its temples, prisons, 

 flower-junks, mandarins, pig-tailed street-boys, &c. Most of the 

 members of the expedition made an excursion thither, and were 

 rewarded with innumerable indescribable impressions from 

 Chinese city life. We were everywhere received by the 

 natives in a friendly way,^ and short as our visit was, it was 



^ Yet with one very laughable exception. I wished for zoological pur- 

 poses to get one of the common" Chinese rats, and with this object in view 

 made inquiries through my interpreter at a shed in the street, where rats 

 were said to be cooked for Chinese epicures. But scarcely had the question 

 been put, when the old, grave host broke out in a furious storm of abuse, 

 especially against the interpreter, who was overwhelmed with bitter 



