SIX WEEKS IX A TO WEE. 53 



uninteresting country in the world, and De Quincey 

 has somewhere said that, had he been compelled to 

 live in it, the monotony of its life would have driven 

 him mad ; but the monotony and dulness of which 

 he complained have been owing chiefly to the dulness 

 of uninteresting writers, who have done injustice to 

 a picturesque subject, because they had not the 

 sympathy by which it might have been appreciated, 

 or the imagination by which alone it could have been 

 reproduced. There are few other countries more in- 

 teresting than China becomes when we are content 

 to regard the actions of its people, however peculiar 

 their circumstances may be, as springing from the 

 ordinary motives of humanity. Beneath its outward 

 uniformity there is abundance of striking variety; 

 comedies and tragedies, with their accompaniments 

 of laughter and of bitter tears, go on there as well 

 as under Occidental skies ; and there are few other 

 lands at present in which the traveller is more likely 

 to observe stirring incidents, or to be concerned in 

 them. There was nothing of much importance 

 to be observed from our tower ; but I trust even a 

 few apparently trivial details may afford something 

 like a truthful idea of the people and country by 

 which we were surrounded ; while the incidents 

 mentioned, and which are related exactly as they 

 occurred, may give some personal interest to the 

 narrative. 



But how came we to bend our steps in that direc- 



