54 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



tion, and to establish ourselves in a tower ? My com- 

 panion and I had made many excursions together in 

 the south of China, and on one occasion we had such 

 a narrow escape from having our heads taken off, that 

 he is indissolubly associated in my mind with the 

 idea of a butcher's knife. One result of these ex- 

 cursions was, that when he became connected with 

 the scheme of Chinese emigration to the British West 

 Indies, he undertook to carry on operations on the 

 mainland of China and in the country districts. 

 This was a service of some danger ; for though the 

 British scheme of emigration, under the superinten- 

 dence of both the British and Chinese Governments, 

 is unobjectionable, and calculated to effect good, 

 other schemes of a different kind had been in opera- 

 tion, and, along with many other circumstances, had 

 raised bitter feelings against foreigners in the minds 

 of the Celestials. The emigration to the Spanish 

 West Indies had given rise to some atrocious kid- 

 napping; and the life of a foreigner in a Chinese 

 village was put in danger if any idler happened to 

 call him a "pig-dealer," as the Cuban coolie-brokers 

 were nicknamed. It was very difficult to change 

 this idea of emigration in the minds of the natives ; 

 and as the mandarins were secretly opposed to the 

 whole scheme, while many of the country gentry 

 were violently so, it may well be imagined that any 

 person engaged in it, travelling on the mainland, 

 carried his life pretty much in his hand. When the 



