verstand their market, and suffer by refusing the first offers made.
This was particularly the case in the season of 1841, in the article of
tea, which fell in price with every overland mail that came in, making
these wary men rue their having declined the offers that had been made
them previously. Most of them are opium-smokers; and their countrymen,
with whom they deal, take care to keep them well supplied with this
luxury, and obtain many a good bargain from them when under its
influence.

The export cargoes of this class of vessels consist principally of raw
cotton, cotton yarn, cotton goods, opium, beche-de-mer or sea slug,
pepper, tin, rattans, edible birds'-nests, deers' sinews, sharks' fins,
fish maws, &c. Of the first three articles, they have of late taken
annually the following quantities:--raw cotton, 20,000 bales of 300
lbs. each; cotton goods, 50,000 pieces of 40 yards each; opium, 2000
chests of 164 lbs. each; the aggregate value of which I put down, in
round numbers, at two millions of dollars.

Many of the small junks that arrive with the last of the north-east
monsoon in April, are fast-sailing craft, and come expressly for opium,
to pay for which they bring nothing but bullion: they take their
departure early in May, and smuggle the drug into Canton by paying the
usual bribe to the Mandarins. All the large junks have sailed on their
return voyage by the end of June. Some few of them that waited in 1841
till the middle of July, in the hope of getting opium cheaper than their
neighbours who sailed earlier, encountered heavy gales in the Chinese
sea; and one or two of them were lost with valuable cargoes. This lesson
has not been lost upon their successors, who have since taken care to
run no such risks. Advantage is taken of the opportunity afforded by the
return of these junks, every season, by the Chinese residents, to make
remittances to their families in China; and the masters of them are
entrusted with their remittances, which usually consist of money,
though, occasionally, rice and other useful articles are sent. The
shipper pays the master a per-centage on the sum transmitted; and
instances of fraud on the part of the latter are extremely rare. A boy
about fourteen years of age whom I had as a servant in my house at
Singapore, used to ask me for a month's wages in advance, to send to his
mother in Macao. Hundreds of similar instances might be adduced. This is
one of the bright traits in the Chin