We left Peking at dawn. Through the silent streets of the Tartar City we drove, passing for the last time through the Gate of Sublime Learning on to the sandy waste outside, jolting along under the great Walls, with the sun rising to meet us.

We are returning to Tungchau by the Canal, and so saving the penalties of the road and the dust, but owing to the numerous locks, we have to transship no less than five times from one boat to another. This waterway is in connection with the great Imperial canal, another, like the Great Wall, of those time-enduring monuments of the industry of a great people—and serves to transport the tribute of rice from the south to Peking. The locks are very picturesque, being built of yellow blocks of stone, over which the running water forms a waterfall overshadowed by trees. It is a quaint slow mode of travelling, gently rippling along over the mirror surface of the water, past great rustling beds of pampas grass twelve feet high, opposite one of which some Chinese sportsmen, with their matchlocks and lighted fuses, are crouched ready to fire at the wild ducks that abound in these watery marshes. Amongst the groves of trees, which look golden in their autumn foliage against a clear blue sky, we see many memorial peilaus, and those other monuments of stone pyramids springing from the back of a huge tortoise. The air is still and clear as early autumn, and the sounds from the mud villages we pass, are borne clearly to us. The walls of Peking, with their crenellated gateways, are just fading away into the blue haze.

Five hours of tedious progress makes our eyes glad to see the beautiful carved bridge of Palikiao, where the combat in 1860 took place, and the damage then done to the bridge has never been repaired. In a few minutes more the pagoda of Tungchau looms up, and the canal rapidly narrows.

We reach Tungchau in a veritable dust-storm, that blows the loose sand by the banks into spiral columns and pillars, and embark once more on the house-boat. It seems quite like coming home. Then we begin the Peiho's weary succession of winding reaches, with the endless continuation of mud banks and yellow water.

The prospect next morning was disheartening. The wind was strong and dead ahead, and though our men had worked all night, certain landmarks told us that our progress was far from satisfactory. All through that long day we crawled along; weary work it was for our poor tired crew. As bend after bend opened out before us and receded, each one so exactly like the other, we registered a hope that we might never more see the Peiho. Evening closed in, night succeeded, and we yet vainly looked for the lights of Tientsin. As so often happens after a long watching, we seemed to arrive suddenly. Our plank door was removed, and we found ourselves at Tientsin and the Bridge of Boats, and amid the grateful "kotows" of our men for a gratuity well earned by such patient toil, we sped in jinrikishas through the dimly-lighted city, where everyone carries his own swinging coloured lantern, to the Consulate once more.

We found a China Merchant's steamer, the Shin Sheng, leaving Tientsin the next morning, and embarked at once. Two unsuccessful attempts at turning the steamer opposite the wharf we made; the third succeeded, but when she was broadside across the stream, stem and stern touched the banks. We passed safely through the perilous bends of the river, only grounding occasionally, but once the bows of the Shin Sheng ran up on to the bank, and cut clean away quite ten feet of it. A little mud-house stood on the angle, and the old village harpy to whom it belonged, came out and shook her fist at the captain on the bridge, showering imprecations on his head, and small wonder, for some time previously the bows of his ship had gone into her house and wrecked it! We breathed more freely when the forts of Taku passed, the Bar, or "Heaven-sent Barrier," crossed, and the pilot left behind, we emerged without mishap into the Yellow Sea.

We had a fearful tossing in the Gulf of Pecheli. At Chefoo we called for cargo. It is a pretty seaside place, with a splendid beach and bathing sands, a boon to the residents of Shanghai, who either come here or go to Japan for the summer months. It was too rough for the lighters to come off, so we anchored for the night. The next morning a gale was blowing in the roadstead—the breaking of the north-east monsoon—and we had to move round under the lea of the bluff. Our hearts sink within us, and we despair of catching the French mail, which means waiting at Shanghai a week for the P. and O. Returning when the gale moderated, the agent sent off to say that we were to start at once and not wait for the cargo, so we have wasted eighteen hours rolling and knocking about for nothing.

We had not gone more than two miles out, when the engineer sent to say that a valve was leaking; this necessitated putting back again, and a further delay. At last we get really off. Certainly we have endured much to see Peking. Two days afterwards we are in the mouth of the Yangtze, anxiously looking for the black funnels of the Messageries boat. We know she should have left at noon to-day, and it is just that hour. Yes, it is all right. She is still there, surrounded by lighters, and we steam close to find out that she sails in twenty hours. There has been a delay of one day, luckily for us.

We proceed up the Woosung tributary of the Yangtze. It is a glorious morning. The junks, painted in gaudy colours, with the all-seeing, staring white and black eye, glide past us. The banks are lined with a fort, factories, dock and ship-building yard, a gay scene of thriving commercial activity. Before us now opens out the bright green lawn of the Bund, of Shanghai, with its blue-roofed pagoda for the band, backed by a row of handsome oriental-looking houses and "hongs," with green blinds and deep verandas. There is the buff and grey of the German consulate, and the grey and red of the Japanese, whilst the French tricolour flies over, and indicates the French settlement, and in the far corner, to the right, is the British flag over our own consulate and garden. The numerous tributaries of the Yangtze are bridged over, and join the quay together.

One of the prettiest sights in coming up to Shanghai, or "upper Sea," is to see the men-of-war and gun-boats of all nations, lying side by side in the river before the Bund. There are English, American, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese men-of-war and a Chinese gunboat, each floating their star and stripes, tricolour, Union Jack, Black Eagle, red ball on a white ground (Japanese) and the Imperial Dragon.

Shanghai is a gay, bright clean place, where upwards of 4000 Europeans reside, the majority being British. These claim for it the title of the Paris of the East, and the shops and broad well-kept streets make it worthy of the name. You have, too, the picturesque element of Chinese life without the accompanying dirt and squalor, for the typical Chinese town with its filthy narrow streets is relegated to the back of the settlement. All life centres on the Bund, which we and everyone else are always passing up and down; and here amongst the smart little broughams, that are like Indian gharries, and the Victorias, dog-carts, and phaetons, with their scarlet-clad mafoos and syces, mingle the sedan-chairs of magnates, the Chinese wheelbarrow, with the passengers balancing on either side, and the brightly lined green and red jinricksha. There is the same cosmopolitan crowd on the pavements overflowing into the road, for the white "ducks" and flannels of the Europeans, mingle with the bright blue, green, maroon, crimson, brown and yellow coats of the merchants and compradores. For many of the hongs (as the places of business are called) are on the Bund—whilst the loose coats and shiny trousers of the Chinese ladies, with their smooth coils of black hair interlaced with green jade hair-pins and long pendant earrings, are seen side by side with the flowing robes and turbaned heads of an Indian.

We called at the British consulate, which lies in an enclosure of spacious green lawn with palms and flower-beds. There stands here a superb granite cross erected to the memory of the five victims, and companions of Sir Harry Parkes, and to avenge whose murder, the Summer Palace was burnt and looted by the French. Further along, on the Bund, is the statue to Sir Harry Parkes, a little man with large whiskers, but a very able diplomatist, whose death was universally mourned by the Europeans in China. The English cathedral and deanery lie at the back of the Bund. The streets are so broad and clean, the roads so firm, that it is a pleasure to be on them, particularly after those of Peking. It is because they are under the supervision of an English Municipal Council, and they deserve for them the greatest credit.

At four o'clock we went to a meet of the Tandem Club, the last of the season, held in front of the bank. There are fifteen members, but ten only turned out, and were led off by the only tandem of horses. The other teams were all of the short-necked, thick-set, Chinese ponies driven in a modified dog-cart. Then we strolled along on the grass under the trees to the gardens, to listen to the Manila band. These gardens slope with green lawns to the water's edge, and the wandering paths lead by beds, bright with heliotrope, geraniums, chrysanthemums, and tropical growths of banyan trees, palms, magnolias, indiarubber and castor-oil plants, amidst which pale-faced children are playing in charge of their Chinese amahs. In the evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Little. He is the able editor of the North China Daily News.

On a lovely Sunday morning we embark on the steam tug, and once more, for the third and last time, go down to Woosung. In an hour we are on board the Messageries Maritime's s.s. CalÉdonien, critically surveying our home for the next five weeks.

The Messageries line has the advantage of the P. and O. in that they are more generous in giving separate cabins, the cuisine is said to be better, and indeed they take trouble to make it so, sending the cooks every two years back to a restaurant in Paris. It is also an immense boon (which everybody who has travelled much will appreciate) to have fixed places for dinner only, and at the other meals a free choice of companions. The saloon is spacious, and there is a splendid promenade deck, which is, however, somewhat spoilt by the influx of too numerous, second-class passengers, who share the privilege of using it.

Harbour of Hong-Kong.