A CRUISE UP THE YANGSTZE IN 1858-59. 189 



' Defile, be hanged ! ' says we ; ' \ve only sat down, 

 sir ; and the country is so full of graves that we could 

 go nowhere else.' But the end on it was that we 

 were fined all round, three of the mess laid up 

 with broken bones, and most on us has had fever. 



D n leave, says I, in Chiney." Are we to be 



blamed if, so far as the sailor and marine were con- 

 cerned, we said, " Amen " ] 



"We are, however, about to put a fresh surface on 

 our especial existence in the Furious. The Commis- 

 sioners from Pekin have arrived; the supplementary 

 treaty has been gone through, amidst innumerable 

 official visits and official feeds; and the clause relative 

 to the opening of the Great River, or Yangstze, for 

 European trade, when rebellion shall have ceased, has 

 been so far discussed that Lord Elgin, with a neces- 

 sary escort of ships, is now at liberty to visit the 

 stream, and select spots likely to answer hereafter as 

 ports of trade or European settlements. The period 

 of the year is most favourable. The north-east mon- 

 soon has just set in on the heels of a series of heavy 

 typhoons, which have reduced the temperature of the 

 reeking valley of the Yangstze, and blown away its 

 fever and cholera, mosquitoes and boils, and the 

 power of the current will diminish as the sources 

 of the river and its affluents become frozen in the 

 north-west by the frosts of a Manchourian winter. 

 That diminution of the force of current will neces- 



