in me here, if it were even for a few hours. We
should first wander through these spacious apartments. We should then
stroll out on the verandah, or along the path of the little terrace
garden which General Ashburnham has surrounded with a defensive wall,
and from thence I should point out to you the harbour, bright as a
flower-bed with the flags of many nations, the jutting promontory of
Kowloon, and the barrier of bleak and jagged hills that bounds the
prospect. A little later, when the sun began to sink, and the long
shadows to fall from the mountain's side, we should set forth for a
walk along a level pathway of about a quarter of a mile long, which is
cut in its flank, and connects with this garden, and from thence we
should watch this same circle of hills, now turned into a garland, and
glowing in the sunset lights, crimson and purple, and blue and green,
and colours for which a name has not yet been found, as they
successively lit upon them. Perhaps we should be tempted to wait (and
it would not be long to wait, for the night follows in these regions
very closely on the heels of day), until, on these self-same hills,
then gloomy and dark and sullen, tens of thousands of bright and
silent stars were looking down calmly from heaven.

_Macao.--December 2nd._--Baron Gros and I have been settling our plans
of proceeding, which we are conducting with a most cordial
_entente_.... As he is well versed in all the forms and usages of
diplomacy, he is very useful to me in such points.... I have been
living here in the house of Mr. Dent, one of the merchant princes of
China. He is very obliging, and I have remained at his request a day
longer than I intended. I return, however, to-day. I like Macao with
its air of antiquity, in some respects almost of decadence. It is more
interesting than Hong-kong, which has only existed fifteen years, and
is as go-a-head and upstart and staring as 'one of our cities,' as my
American friend informed me a few days ago.

_Hong-kong.--December 5th._--When I went out to walk with Oliphant, I
was informed by a person I met in a very public walk just out of the
town, that a man had been robbed very near where we were. I met the
person immediately afterwards. He was rather a _mesquin_-looking
Portuguese, and he said that three Chinamen had rushed upon him,
kn