50 DRIVEN BACK TO CHIMOO. [Cuar. IV. 
soon found that our weather bulwarks had been 
stove in, and the long-boat carried over to leeward 
from its place in mid-ships, where it was fixed. 
Luckily the lee bulwarks held it fast, otherwise the 
boat and the whole of our crew would have been 
swept together into the angry foaming ocean, where 
no mortal arm could have rendered them any as- 
sistance. Two glazed plant cases filled with plants 
from Amoy, which were on the deck, were dashed to 
pieces, and their contents, of course, completely 
destroyed. In the long voyage from England to 
China, even in rounding the celebrated “ Cape of 
Storms,” I never experienced such weather as I met 
with on the east coast of China, at the commence- 
ment of the north-east monsoon. After being three 
days in the storm, having only as much sail on the 
vessel as to steady her, the gale moderated a little, 
and we were able to hoist more sail, and make for 
the land, which proved to be a place called Chimoo, 
which was far below the point which we started 
from a week before. 
Chimoo Bay is about flier miles north of Amoy. 
It has been an opium station for foreign ships for 
some years; and here, even during the war, that 
trade was carried on in spite of the mandarins. 
The natives of the different towns on the shores of 
this bay are an independent and lawless race. An 
anecdote was related to me by one of the captains, 
which gives a fair idea how things are managed in 
this part of the country. 
Some of the opium merchants came on board 
