responsibility of reversing C.'s order, with which the men were very
much disgusted.

The next day he was afloat again, on his way to Hong-Kong.

_June 14th._--When you receive this, you will be thinking of dear
Bruce's school plans. Would that I could share your thoughts and
anxieties!... I have been reading a rather curious book--the 'Life of
Perthes,' a Hamburg bookseller. It reveals something of the working of
the inner life of Germany during the time of the first Napoleonic
Empire. It might interest you.

[Sidenote: Books.]

_June 17th_.--Another Sunday. How many since we parted? I cannot count
them. It seems to me as if a good many years had elapsed since that
sad evening at Dover. But here I am going on farther and farther from
home! We hope to reach Hong-Kong on Thursday next; but that is not the
end of my voyage, though it is the beginning of my work. I am still
comparatively idle, ransacking the captain's cabin for books. The last
I have read is Kingsley's 'Two Years Ago.' I do not wonder that you
ladies like Kingsley, for he makes all his women guardian angels.

_June 19th_.--I have read Trench's 'Lectures on English' since
yesterday. I think you know them, but I had not done more than glance
at them before. They open up a curious field of research if one had
time enough to enter upon it. The monotony of our life is not broken
by many incidents. Tennyson's poem of the 'Lotus-Eaters' suits us
well, as we move noiselessly through this polished sea, on which the
great eye of the sun is glaring down from above. We passed a ship
yesterday with all sails set. This was an event; to-day a butterfly
made its appearance. In two days I may be forming decisions on which
the well-being of thousands of our fellow-creatures may be contingent.

_June 20th_.--Still it is sad, sometimes almost overwhelming, to think
of the many causes of anxiety from which you may be suffering, of
which for months I can have no knowledge, and with which these letters
when you receive them may seem to have no sympathy.... I can only pray
that you may have in your troubles a protection and a guidance more
effectual than any which I could afford when I was with you.... As to
my own particular interests, I mean those connected with my mission, I
can hardly form any conjectures.... I am glad that the time for