In the Land of the Blue Gown

he sun. Here comes a steamer with a European flag : an ocean tramp ! Many a weary mile has she coasted to get her freight, which she carries at charges that may or may not pay. Yet seen from this distance she looks swift and jaunty in among the heavy junks. The sun shines, the fresh breeze blows invitingly ; it is hard to resist the temptation to take hat and gloves and go out. But pass on, brown sails ! Pass on, red sails ! I will not look at you. Yet ? surely that is the smoke of a steamer in the far reach. Can it be ? is it? It is! The home mail! But the two guns have not yet sent a thrill through all the Shanghai colony of Europeans : telling one of home and mother, home and child, home andwife; telling another of teas sold at a loss of 3d. in the pound, or silk not on demand. Even when the guns have sounded, the letters?the pleasant, chatty, hand-and-heart-pressing home letters?cannot be delivered that very minute. There is still time to describe my last walk round the walls of that little-known city the Shanghai Chinatown. Hitherto our walks have chiefly been confined to the grass-plats of the Bund, with its motley crowd, watching the boats go by. There goes another, distinctly recalling the old Venetian galleys in Tintoretto's pictures, and there swiftly rides up stream an old Viking barge. " Freighted with Curses!" I see it so called, and hung on the walls of the Academy. This with the eyes of the imagination, of course. In reality it is an honest Chin... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.