completely around, shutting him out from the gratification of his most natural desires and rendering it indeed uncertain whether any perfectly devout and faithful Buddhists can possibly exist in China.
The return voyage to Ningpo and Shanghai I must pass by unrecorded, that I may hurry forward to describe my journey up the Yangtsze river to Sze-chuan.
Having dined with a literary friend in Shanghai, I returned to the hotel towards midnight and there found my boys with every- thing in readiness, and a gang of coolies waiting to bear our baggage on board the *'Fusiyama, " which was getting up steam for Hankow. It was a bitter night, and the scene was as dark and gloomy as the wind was cold. The lamps blinked and shiv- ered as the blast swept by. The bund was deserted ; only some stray woman would now and again emerge from the darkness, and then be swallowed up once more, like a sinful victim in the jaws of night. We soon passed on to the "Fusiyama," across the floating landing-stage alongside of which she was moored. She was a fine steamer, although by no means the finest among the S. S. N. Go's fleet.
Reserving what I may have to say about Nanking and the ports on the lower Yangtsze, I will transport the reader at once about 600 miles higher up — to Hankow, the furthest point on the Yangtsze river to which steam navigation had at that time been carried. Hankow holds an important position at the confluence of the rivers Han and Yangtsze. The ancient name of the Han river was the Mien, and its course, as well as the point at which it joins the Yangtsze, have been subjected to frequent change. It was only in the last decade of the fifteenth century that the river created its present channel, and at the same time the advantageous site, to which Hankow owes no little portion of
