216 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



sang, would still be there, and testify to their loyalty. 

 These worthies added that there was only one draw- 

 back, in their individual opinion, to the present state 

 of things, and that was the unpleasant way in which 

 the Taepings swept off the good-looking women from 

 the farms ; this touched them, and they did warm a 

 little on that point ; but as to the slaughter of the 

 citizens and children in the cities, the plunder of the 

 trader and merchant, that was other men's business, 

 not theirs. 



A charming instance of cold-blooded fish-like selfish- 

 ness is the Chinaman, and one almost feels as if it 

 needed the scourge and the sword of the Taeping 

 ruffian to rouse from his hideous lethargy ; but we 

 must rattle onward, for the next great event will be 

 our arrival at the junction of the Poyang Lake with 

 our Ta-keang, or Great River. For Yangstze it has 

 ceased to be called since we passed the Great Canal. 

 Hitherto, from Nankin to Ngan-king, we had been 

 steaming through a magnificently rich valley of some 

 two hundred miles in length, and varying from twenty- 

 five to ten miles in width, the hills on either side of 

 no remarkable altitude, but still picturesque, and 

 affording glimpses of scenery as rich and varied as 

 any in China. Farmsteads and cultivation abounded 

 throughout the major portion of this rich region, and 

 it was only the towns and cities which had been 

 wrecked and plundered. There was, it is true, a total 

 absence of all activity and life upon the magnificent 



