A CRUISE UP THE YANGSTZE IN 1858-59. 187 



severity, we go through our part of showing how en- 

 tirely such offences are at variance with the printed 

 instructions and Admiralty circulars ; in short, talked 

 to them like what shall we say 1 ah ! that is it, 

 " like a Dutch uncle," we overhear one youth remark 

 to the other as they escape on to the main-deck again ; 

 " and he says he will stop our leave," adds another ; 

 to which a piccolo voice pipes out, that having spent 

 all the cash he was likely to receive for the next three 

 months in investments in lacquer-ware, he did not 

 propose going on shore, and that the captain's punish- 

 ment would not affect his happiness. Of course, we 

 were sufficiently astute, under such circumstances, not 

 to stop the leave to go on shore of these young worthies, 

 and had to exercise our ingenuity in devising other 

 modes of torture with a view to enforcing the badgered 

 chaplain and naval instructor's authority. But this 

 excitement was not confined to the officers ; and apart 

 from the outside of Japan for that was all our men 

 saw of it it appeared to me that the seamen preferred 

 a cruise in salt water to doing the duty of policemen 

 in Chinese ports and rivers. Every boat's crew from 

 strange ships that came alongside are regaled with 

 awful yarns about our cruise to Yedo. " So you have 

 been up to Yedo ? " inquired the other day a sailor in 

 an American galley. " Yes ! I should think we had 

 too," replied a youth of Gosport extraction; "we 

 shoved our jib-boom right into the Hemperor's draw- 

 ing-room windows, and nigh broke all the egg-shell 



