Chap. III. 



TSE-KEE. 



43 



labourer's breakfast consisted of porridge and 

 milk, his dinner of bread and beer, and porridge 

 and milk again for supper. A Chinaman would 

 starve upon such food. Again, if one looks at 

 our sailors making their dinner upon dry salt beef 

 and biscuit, the contrast is equally marked. The 

 dinner of the Chinese sailor is not a whit more 

 expensive, but much more agreeable, healthy, and 

 civilised. Chinese tea-manufacturers whom I 

 have been in the habit of taking to India always 

 asserted they got sick when obliged to live on such 

 food as is given to our sailors, and generally laid 

 in a private stock of various little articles with 

 which they were able to make up a dinner of a 

 very different kind. 



Having completed my investigations in this 

 part of the country for the present, I bade adieu to 

 my kind friends in Ayuka's temple, and returned 

 to Ningpo on my way to the old city of Tse-kee. 

 This is a very ancient place, about ten or twelve 

 miles north-west from Mngpo, and near one of the 

 branches of the river which flows past that town. 

 Leaving Ningpo with the first of the flood-tide in 

 the evening, and going on all night, I found 

 myself close by the walls of Tse-kee at daylight 

 next morning. As it was necessary for me to 

 remain in this neighbourhood for some time, I 

 looked out for a pleasant spot for head-quarters. 

 Taking my boat into the canal or moat which has 

 been made round a portion of the city, I found 

 such a place as I wanted near the north gate ; 



