150 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



involved in some intrigues he was banished, not back to heaven but to remote Yunnan, 

 and eventually died in peace at Nanking, almost within hail of his Ningpo patron. 



These ancient singers of China sang of lower themes than those which made 

 Csedmon's old voice young again. Not the glory and the works of God, but the follies and 

 excesses of bacchanalian scenes too often formed their subject. But in some of these songs 

 and in Chinese classical poetry generally, as distinguished from the stilted and mechanical 

 verses of modern times, there is a ring of truest poetry. Nature is described with the 

 accuracy of careful observation, but softened by the silver haze of tears which love for her 

 beauty and grief for her fading call forth from the heart— description which is itself noblest 

 sentiment and deepest teaching; the soul of nature lives and sings in the true poet's heart 

 and voice, but that soul never altogether forgets the power divine around and above and 

 within her. 



It is difficult to imagine in the friendly and prosperous Ningpo of the present day 

 how unfriendly it has been sometimes in the past and how terribly it suffered during the 

 T'ai-p'ing Rebellion. That rebellion, as it affected Ningpo and the province of Chehkiang, 

 cannot be described in the end of a short article ; and the writer, who is one of the few 

 living eye-witnesses of those events, must reserve the narrative for some other occasion. 

 But there are some people still living who remember and have described to him the 

 stranding of the transport Kite on the shores of the Hangchow Bay sixty years and more 

 ago, and the exhibition in the streets of Ningpo of the captain's wife, who was seized by 

 the wreckers and carried about the country in a cage. She was thus insulted by the people 

 who now in city and country alike are courteous and friendly to all those who treat them 

 with courtesy and not with supercilious contempt. 



I should like to linger long in description and affectionate memory, and to lead 

 my readers to share in my delight over scenery in mountains and plains and on the sea- 

 board which have charmed me during more than half of my life, spent as a missionary of 

 the Cross of Christ in this city and neighbourhood. Can they ever hope to see the sight 

 which greeted me one Sunday afternoon, as I was passing from village to village amongst 

 the hills, preaching.? The sun was fast westering and we were hurrying along the mountain- 

 path when, at a turn of the hill, I saw sitting together and facing the sun, a fox, a badger, 

 and a wild boar. They moved off without panic and executed a strategic movement to the 

 rear, but you might walk many long miles and live many long years before these three 

 would meet and greet you again. Three times within my memory have royal tigers visited 

 the immediate vicinity of Ningpo, though their chief home is amongst the mountains of 

 Taichow. Leopards have been more frequently seen in the Ningpo hills, and large wild 

 cats are often met with. A sportsman once told me of an adventure of his on the Saenpoh 

 hills to the north-west. He was lying on his back one moonlight night, watching for wild- 

 geese to fly over, when a beast leapt over him and then turned and faced him, near a white 

 tomb-stone. He saw then to his astonishment that it was a full grown wolf, and the country 

 people told him next day that wolves hunt in packs in those districts. Two large wolves 

 were shot three years ago near the Lakes, twelve miles from Ningpo. Amongst the southern 

 mountains a black panther was seen last year, as well as tigers and dog-faced bears ; but 

 the hills and plains of Ningpo, the home of the pheasant and the partridge, are for the 

 most part free from both dangerous wild beasts and venomous reptiles. 



