he lamented to me over the wreck of his property. There were still two apartments in front, one containing a billiard- table and the other a bar ; but a couple of mud bedrooms had dissolved and could be seen in solution through a broken wall. The stabling in the rear also, out of sheer depression at losing its occupants, had taken a header into the water and disappeared. We next passed out of doors to examine the ravages of the flood in sundry outhouses which had also settled down. In the bar-room I found a Scotchman connected with the Tientsin Powder Factory, saying some very hard things about the pecu- liar views of a Chinese tailor to whom he had entrusted some
- 'vara guid braid claith to mak a pair of breeks." It appeared
that the tailor had found it necessary, on account of family concerns, to remove from Tientsin to another district, and had taken the cloth with him without going through the ceremony of leaving his card.
I slept on board the steamer, and started for Peking on August 29th. Before setting out I engaged a Tientsin man named Tao, or *' Virtue," at the rate of nine dollars a month; but this sum was a trifle compared with what he intended to make out of me, as in every transaction, whether it was simply to change a dollar into cash, or to buy provisions, he made a profitable bargain for himself. My own southern men could have managed better, although they were ignorant of the northern dialect, and could only make known their wants in writing. Systematic pilfering, however, I soon discovered to be the common attribute of servants in the north. We engaged a boat to convey us to Tung-chow, the nearest point by water to Peking. This boat carried a wooden house in the centre, which could be shut up all round at night, so as to keep the cold out ; and it was just large enough to accommodate my party and baggage. The space
