g-Kong.]

At length, on the 4th of January, he writes, 'Hurrah! I am off, with a fair
wind.' On the 8th he reached Hong-Kong, where he found little to detain
him; the most important matter being the formal taking possession, in the
Queen's name, of the recently ceded peninsula of Kowloon.

_Hong-Kong.--January 10th._--I presume, from the apologetic tone of a
speech (very civil in itself) made by Lord J. Russell in the city, and
quoted in the 'Home News,' that I was being well abused in England
when the mail left. It is all miserable enough, but I had rather that
it had blown over before I reach home, as I might seem to reflect on
others if I defended myself, and you say truly that we have had enough
of that kind of thing.

_January 15th._--I find that the new Factory site [at Canton], about
which I had such a fight with the merchants last time, is a great
success.[1] Its merit is now acknowledged by the blindest.

In a subsequent letter, referring to the last days of his stay at Hong-
Kong, he wrote:-

[Sidenote: Kowloon.]

We had a sort of ceremonial on Saturday the 19th. I went to Kowloon,
and proclaimed formally the annexation of that territory to the
dominions of the Queen. This acquisition, the good site at Canton, and
the opening-up of the North of China and Japan, have added at least
twenty per cent. to the value of European life in China.

[Sidenote: Adieu to China.]

On the 21st of January he bade a final adieu to the shores of China, and
directed his course to Manila; desiring to avoid this time the dreary line
to Singapore which he had traversed so often, and attracted also by the new
fields which the Spanish and Dutch colonies offered for his observation.

[Sidenote: Manila.]

_At Sea, near Manila.--January 24th._--I wrote a very shabby line to
you as I was leaving Hong-Kong, but it may not perhaps be an unwelcome
one, as it informed you I had started. We have had rough weather, and
I take up my pen to-day for the first time. We are now under the lee
of some of the Philippines, so we get less of the great swell which
has been rolling down from the north-east, and of the gale which blows
during this monsoon down the channel that separates the island of
Formosa from the Philippines as through a funnel.

_Manila.--January 26th, Eight A.M._--I sent off a few lines to you
yesterday, to tell you of my ve