they hate being frightened, and the knowledge of this idiosyncrasy of
theirs is the key of the position. I have just written a letter to my
friends the Imperial Commissioners here, which will, I think, shake
their nerves considerably, and bring them to a manageable frame of
mind.

In fact, when he found that Governor-General Hwang had not been recalled,
nor the Committee of Gentry suppressed, and that the Canton Braves were
still making war upon our troops, he felt that the Chinese were trying to
evade the performance of their promises, and that there was nothing for it
but to 'appeal again to 'that ignoble passion of fear which was unhappily
the one _primum mobile_ of human action in China.'[4] Accordingly he wrote
to the Imperial Commissioners that, as the Emperor did not carry out what
they undertook, he would have nothing more to say to them on the subject;
that the English soldiers and sailors would take the Braves into their own
hands; and that he or his successor would in a month or two have an
opportunity of ascertaining at Pekin itself whether or not the Emperor was
abetting the persons who were creating disturbances in the South.

The journal continues, under date of January 20:--

[Sidenote: Town of Shanghae.]

Yesterday I took a walk through the town of Shanghae with a missionary
who is a very good _cicerone_. We went into a good many _ateliers_ of
silversmiths, ribbon-makers, tobacco-manufacturers, carvers in wood,
and the like. The Chinese are skilful manipulators, but they are
singularly uninventive. Nothing can be more rude than their labour-
saving processes. We visited also a foundling establishment. There was
a drawer at the entrance in which the infants are deposited, as is, I
believe, the case at Paris. The children seem tolerably cared for, but
there were not many in the house. The greater portion are given out to
nurse. We went also into a large inn or lodging-house, frequented by a
respectable class of visitors--silk merchants, &c. The rooms seemed
comfortable, quite as good as the accommodation provided for
commercial travellers at an English inn. A good many books seemed to
form part of the luggage of the occupant of each room that we entered.
It is curious that I should have been engaged in so many enterprises
of rather an out-of-the-way character since I have been out here. I
confess that in my own opi