DEPARTURE FROM TA-KOO. 
75 
and we in vain endeavoured to persuade the Chinese to take our cots 
from the junks : bare boards formed our resting places for the night. 
The novelty of our situation would alone have prevented our obtaining 
any sleep, had not myriads of musquitoes kept us perpetually on the 
watch. These tormenting insects were more virulent on the banks of 
the Pei-ho near the sea, than I had elsewhere found them ; their sting 
indeed was so intolerable, that it was impossible to remain quiet in 
any place where they abounded, and no place was free from them. 
In vain 1 endeavoured to escape them : wherever I went, they either 
followed or received me ; and whatever change of situation I made, 
seemed to be a change for the worse. 
Early the next morning we took possession of our respective boats, 
but found them very defective in their accommodation for the number 
of persons whom they were intended to convey. As however we ex- 
pected to obtain others in a few days at Tien-sing, and were anxious at 
starting not to disoblige the Chinese, we made ourselves as comfortable 
in them as they would permit, and prepared, though not without a 
murmur, for our voyage. We had little cause to look forward with 
much pleasurable anticipation to the liberty which we were likely to 
enjoy during our passage through China. Whilst we remained at 
Ta-koo, a piece of ground, not a hundred yards square, was divided 
off for our perambulations, and kept by soldiers, who would on no 
account suffer us to pass beyond it. It was therefore with no very 
pleasing expectation that we heard the gong give the signal for 
departure at ten o’clock in the morning of the tenth of August. 
And now my reader is perhaps as anxious to learn, as I was to see, 
all that is worth observation between Ta-koo and Tien-sing ; but let 
me prepare him for disappointment. No country in the world can 
afford, I imagine, fewer objects of interest to any species of traveller, 
than the banks of the Pei-ho between those places. The land is 
marshy and sterile, the inhabitants are poor and squalid, their 
habitations mean, dirty, and dilapidated, and the native productions 
of the soil are few and unattractive. The scenery had only novelty 
and strangeness to recommend it ; but had it possessed the attractions 
l 2 
