Cuar.IV.] CHINESE MODE OF PAYING TAXES. $1 
one of the ships in the bay, and requested the loan 
of some guns, for each of which they offered to 
deposit a large piece of Sycee silver, which was, of 
course, much more than its value; and promised to 
return them in a day or two. When asked what 
they intended to do with them, they replied, that 
the mandarins and officers of government were ex- 
pected shortly to levy the taxes, and that the people 
were determined not to pay. They said they only 
wanted four or five guns for the purpose: these 
were granted them ; and ina day or two, when they 
returned them, inquiry was made if they had been 
successful. “Oh, yes,’ they said: “they had 
driven the mandarins over the hills.” It certainly 
had been no very difficult matter to effect this object. 
The inhabitants in the towns and villages around 
the bay are frequently at war with each other; in 
this they resemble the borderers of our own 
country in ancient feudal times, when “ might was 
right.” As in those days, too, a sort of black 
mail is levied, and treaties of peace are concluded, 
one of the parties paying a stipulated sum to the 
other. This, however, I am sorry to say, is not 
the worst trait in their character: they are the 
greatest thieves and robbers in existence; as I 
myself found to my cost. 
One day I had sent my Chinese servant on shore 
with orders to gather all the plants he could 
find in a certain direction, which I pointed out 
to him before he left the ship; but he returned 
to me the next morning with only a few useless 
E 2 
