Cuar. XIII] JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR. 251 
silks, and fine ladies, all come from Soo-chow. 
—It is the Chinaman’s earthly paradise, and it 
would be hard indeed to convince him that it had 
its equal in any town on earth. In addition to 
its other attractions, I was informed by the Chinese 
nursery gardeners at Shanghae that it contained a 
great number of excellent flower gardens and 
nurseries, from which they obtained all or nearly 
all the plants which they had for sale, and I was, 
therefore, strongly tempted to infringe the absurd 
laws of the Celestial Empire, and try to reach this 
far-famed place. My greatest difficulty was to 
meet with boatmen who would travel with me, as 
they were all frightened for the mandarins, who had 
issued very stringent orders to them after the cir- 
cumstance happened which I have already noticed. 
They were told, that they might take foreigners 
down the river towards the sea, and up as far as 
a pagoda a mile or two above Shanghae, but on no 
account were they to go up the western branch 
of the river. This was a direct infringement on 
the right which had been secured to us by the 
treaty of Nanking, and her Majesty’s consul at 
this port soon found it necessary and prudent to 
interfere in the matter. Some time after this period, 
when what are called the boundaries were fixed, 
the foreign residents were allowed to go a day’s 
journey into the interior, that is, as far as they 
could go and come back again in twenty-four hours. 
Having at length procured a boat, we set off on 
our journey, the boatmen neither knowing where 
