2 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. I. 
the shore presented than with the shipping. I had 
heard that many Enghsh and American houses had been 
built, indeed one or two were being built before I left 
China ; but a new town, of very considerable size, now 
occupied the place of wretched Chinese hovels, cotton- 
fields, and tombs. The Chinese were moving gradually 
backwards into the country, with their families, effects, 
and all that appertained unto them, reminding one of 
the aborigines of the West, with this important dif- 
ference, that the Chinese generally left of their free will 
and were liberally remunerated for their property by the 
foreigners. Their chief care was to remove, with their 
other effects, the bodies of their deceased friends, which 
are commonly interred on private property near their 
houses. Hence it was no uncommon thing to meet 
several coffins being borne by coolies or friends to the 
westward. In many instances when the coffins were 
uncovered they were found totally decayed, and it was 
impossible to remove them. When this was the case, a 
Chinese might be seen holding a book in his hand, 
which contained a list of the bones, and directing others 
in their search after these the last remnants of mortality. 
It was most amusing to see the groups of Chinese 
merchants who came from some distance inland on a 
visit to Shanghae. They wandered about along the 
river side with wonder depicted in their countenances. 
The square-rigged vessels which crowded the river, the 
houses of the foreigners, their horses and their dogs, 
were all objects of wonder, even more so than the 
foreigners themselves. Mr. Beale, who has one of the 
finest houses here, had frequent applications from re- 
