232 
CHARACTER OF THE CHINESE. 
intolerable to European organs. The Chinese, as De Guignes has 
remarked, are utterly insensible to bad smells. 
Before I take leave of China, I should be glad to state what is 
the impression on my mind with regard to the natural character 
of its people, but find it very difficult to form any conclusion 
respecting it, even to my own satisfaction. Persons travelling 
in a country in which they are looked upon by the govern- 
ment as objects of jealousy, and by the people as beings in 
all respects inferior to themselves, must have continually to 
contend with prejudices likely to defeat their attempts at forming 
a correct estimate of the inhabitants. With the higher or better in- 
formed classes of society, for they are essentially the same in China, 
we had very little intercourse that was not purely official or cere- 
monious ; and on all these occasions found them so cased in the 
armour of form that it was impossible to reach their natural cha- 
racter, or to depend on their information as the simple statement of 
matters of fact. My own opportunity of conversing with a man 
of rank, I have already had occasion to mention in the course of 
this work, and at the same time to point out his proneness to 
falsify. He seemed only anxious to please the person he was con- 
versing with at the time, with very little regard to veracity. Our most 
extensive intercourse was with the trading part of the community, 
of whom I have little to add to what I have before stated, namely, 
that in their dealings with the Embassy they generally proved 
themselves cheats when their interest did not compel them to be 
honest. It is but fair, however, to remark that the principle of cheat- 
ing is so legitimated amongst them by the general practice and tole- 
ration of their countrymen, as to be considered rather as a neces- 
sary qualification to the successful practice of their calling, than 
as an immoral quality. In some instances, I found the love 
of gain curiously contrasted with a ready disposition to give. 
Those who had exacted from me with the greatest pertinacity all 
they could obtain whilst bargaining with me in their shops, would 
