100 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



constantly holding serious consultations on subjects 

 about which we could learn nothing. 



The word " Hakka " originally means stranger ; 

 and the people we were among are called that in 

 opposition to the " Punti," or indwellers of the coun- 

 try. They came from the north, from the province 

 of Kiang-si, and some of them from Fu-kien, and 

 settled on waste lands in Kwang-tung, which they 

 brought into a state of cultivation; but whenever 

 strong enough to do so, they bought or beat out their 

 neighbours from the older cultivated ground. They 

 are a rude people, with much less politeness and 

 education than the other Chinese ; but this very de- 

 fect enables them to get on better with foreigners, as 

 their pride is not so easily alarmed or offended, and 

 they are not so pertinaciously wedded to old customs. 

 Nearly all the coolie corps, the " Bamboo Eifles," em- 

 ployed by us at Canton, and in the expedition against 

 Peking, were Hakkas. The Punti despise them ; but 

 this contempt is mingled with some dread, as the 

 Hakkas are sturdy fellows, and rather fond of fighting. 

 A great deal of local conflict goes on between the two 

 sections, and these fights sometimes assume formid- 

 able dimensions. I am almost sure that the Celestial 

 younger brother, Hung Sew Tsuen, is a Hakka. At 

 all events, the nucleus of his followers were and are 

 so ; and it will be found that the Tai-ping rebellion 

 is quite as much, if not more, a Hakka movement 

 than it is a religious one, though it is simply a mar- 



