ClTAP. VI. 



BOAT-TRAVELLING, 



93 



CHAPTEE VI. 



Boat-travelling — Unsettled state of the country — A midnight alarm 

 — Old quarters at Tein-timg — A good Buddhist priest — Chinese 

 farmers — Their wives and families — Chinese women's passion, and 

 its effects — Women's curse — The author is seized with fever — A 

 native doctor and his mode of treatment — Method of taking honey 

 from bees — Mosquito tobacco — Its composition and manufacture. 



The scenes and adventures which I have endea- 

 voured to describe in the previous chapters, such 

 as making collections of insects and other objects 

 of natural history, paying and receiving visits 

 from Chinese friends, and examining collections 

 of ancient works of art, although noted down in 

 order to give an idea of the manners and customs 

 of the most wonderful people on the surface of the 

 globe, were merely my amusements in the midst 

 of other and far more important labours. The 

 country was examined for many miles in all di- 

 rections, and arrangements made with the small 

 farmers for large supplies of seeds of the tea-plant 

 and other fruit and forest trees which were likely 

 to be valued in India. My mode of travelling by 

 boat, in a country where the canals and rivers 

 are the highways, was well adapted to the ends 

 I had in view. I was, as it were, always at home ; 

 my bed, my clotlies, and my servants were always 



