188 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



china a-saluting of our Ambassador." "Thankee!" 

 said the Yankee ; " that will do ! " and then it was 

 equally refreshing to hear the men-of-war's men from 

 both sides of the Atlantic expressing their preference 

 for any spot rather than Shanghai as a place of sojourn 

 for sailors. 



Even as I sit at my table, down the skylight come 

 the voices of the mizentop-men scraping their mast ; 

 they are wishing China and the Chinese fathoms down 

 beneath the Yellow Sea. 



"But I thinks the hofficers likes Chiney, Bill," 

 remarked one of the men ; " there are places on 

 shore for them to go to, you see hotels, and clubs, 

 and merchants' houses, and suchlike ; but for us 

 poor beggars, what is it 1 why, it ain't a country fit 

 for a Christian. Look at what our mess did here, 

 last time they were on leave ; why, we goes to a 

 store, buys a three-dozen case of beer and one dozen 

 of hollands, and then goes out to drink it amongst 

 them Chineman graves, with a sun hot enough to 

 raise blisters on the tombstones. Of course all on us 

 got dead drunk, when down comes a whole heap of 

 Fokies with bamboos as big as the dingy's mast, and 

 commences a-hammering on us. So we rouses up and 

 has a regular set-to. Of course we are pulled up 

 afore the consul next day, and he says, says he, 

 ' Sarve you right you were defiling the Chinemen's 

 graves ; and they are so werry fond of their grand- 

 mothers that they cannot abide that sort of thing/ 



