account of thirty years before, we might conclude that the building was
not then in existence.

On October 21, 1811, Manning writes in his diary: 'We arrived at Phari
Jong. Frost. Frost also two days before. I was lodged in a strange
place, but so were the natives.' On the 27th he summarized his
impressions of Phari:--'Dirt, dirt, grease, smoke, misery, but good
mutton.'

Manning's journal is expressive, if monosyllabic. He was of the class
of subjective travellers, who visit the ends of the earth to record
their own personal discomforts. Sensitive, neurotic, ever on the
look-out for slights, he could not have been a happy vagabond. A dozen
lines record the impressions of his first week at Phari. He was cheated;
he was treated civilly; he slighted the magistrates, mistaking them for
idle fellows; he was turned out of his room to make way for Chinese
soldiers; he quarrelled with his servant. A single extract portrays the
man to the life, as if he were sitting dejectedly by his yak-dung fire
at this hour brooding over his wrongs:--

"The Chinaman was cross again." Says I, "Was that a bird at the
magistrate's that flapped so loud?" Answer: "What signifies whether it
was a bird or not?" Where he sat I thought he might see; and I was
curious to know if such large birds frequented the _building_. These are
the answers I get. He is always discontented and grumbling, and takes no
trouble off my hands. Being younger, and, like all Asiatics, able to
stoop and crouch without pain or difficulty, he might assist me in many
things without trouble to himself. A younger brother or any English
young gentleman would in his place of course lay the cloth, and do other
little services when I am tired; but he does not seem to have much of
the generous about him, nor does he in any way serve me, or behave to me
with any show of affection or goodwill: consequently I grow no more
attached to him than the first day I saw him. I could not have thought
it possible for me to have lived so long with anyone without either
disliking him or caring sixpence for him. He has good qualities, too.
The strangeness of his situation may partly excuse him. (I am more
attached to my guide, with all his faults, who has been with me but a
few days.) My guide has behaved so damnably ill since I wrote that, that
I wish it had not come into my mind.'

I give the extract at length, not only as an illuminating portrait of
Manning, but as an incidental proof that