34 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. III. 
said they only wanted four or five guns for the purpose : 
these were granted them ; and in a day or two, when 
they returned them, inquiry was made if they had been 
successful. " 0 yes/' they said : " we have 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 things, which he had evidently 
gathered very near the landing-place on the shore. I 
felt much annoyed at this, and scolded him pretty sharply 
for his conduct ; but he excused himself by saying that 
he durst not go in the direction to which I had pointed, 
as he would have been beaten and robbed by the Chin- 
chew men. This I did not believe at the time, and 
imagined that it was laziness on his part, for, like most 
of the Chinese, who receive a specified sum per month 
for their services, he was rather remarkable for this 
propensity; I therefore determined to set out mjself 
