pair, and on the whole tolerably
cared for. The view from the top of the hill was magnificent, and
there was glorious music here and there, from the sea rolling in upon
the sandy beach. We met some women (not young ones) going up the hill
in chairs to worship at the temples, and found, in some, individuals
at their devotions. In one there was a monk, hidden behind a great
drum, repeating in a plaintive tone, over and over again, the name of
Buddha, 'ameta fo,' or something like that sound. I observed some with
lumps on the forehead, evidently produced by knocking it against the
ground. The utter want of respect of these people for their temples,
coupled with this asceticism and apparent self-sacrifice in their
religion, is a combination which I cannot at present understand. It
has one bad effect, that in the plundering expeditions which we
Christians dignify with the name of war in these countries, idols are
ripped up in the hope of finding treasure in them, temple ornaments
seized, and in short no sort of consideration is shown for the
religious feelings of the natives.

The following notice of the same sacred island occurs in one of his
despatches:--

I trust that I may be permitted to offer one remark in reference to
Potou, an islet adjoining Chusan, which I touched at on my way from
the latter place to Chapoo. Little information, of course, was to be
gathered there on questions directly affecting trade or politics, for
it is a holy spot, exclusively appropriated to temples in tinsel and
bonzes in rags; but it was impossible to wander over it as I did,
visiting with entire impunity its most sacred recesses, without being
forcibly reminded of the fact that one, at least, of the obstacles to
intercourse between nations, which operates most powerfully in many
parts, especially of the East, can hardly be said to exist in China.
The Buddhistic faith does not seem to excite in the popular mind any
bigoted antipathy to the professors of other creeds. The owner of the
humblest dwelling almost invariably offers to the foreigner who enters
it the hospitable tea-cup, without any apparent apprehension that his
guest, by using, will defile it; and priests and worshippers attach no
idea of profanation to the presence of the stranger in the joss-house.
This is a fact, as I humbly conceive, not without