After a few months journey through China, we arrived at Macao, in the early part of October, 1846. Our long and painful journey was at an end; and at last we were able, after so many tribulations, to enjoy a little quiet and repose. During two years we applied our leisure moments to the preparation of the few notes made in our journey. Hence these “Reminiscences of Travel,” which we address to our European brethren, whose charity will no doubt be interested in the trials and fatigues of the missionaries.

Our entrance into China, for the purpose of returning to our mission in Mongol-Tartary, compels us to leave unfinished the labour we had undertaken. It remains for us to speak of our relations with the Chinese tribunals and Mandarins, to give a sketch of the provinces we have traversed, and to compare them with those which we had occasion to visit in our former travels in the Celestial Empire. This omission we will endeavour to supply in the leisure hours we may be able to snatch from the labours of the sacred ministry. Perhaps we shall be in a position to give some correct notions about a country, of which, at no time, certainly, have men’s ideas been so erroneous as they are at this day. Not that we are without abundant books about China and the Chinese. On the contrary, the number of works on these subjects that have appeared in France, and particularly in England, within the last few years, is really prodigious. But the zeal of a writer will not always suffice to describe countries in which he has never set his foot. To write travels in China, after a saunter or two through the factories of Canton and the environs of Macao, involves the danger of speaking of things that one is not thoroughly acquainted with. Although it has been the good fortune of the learned orientalist, J. Klaproth, to discover the Potocki Archipelago without quitting his closet, it is, generally speaking, rather difficult to make discoveries in a country which one has not visited.

Chinese Ornamental Ware