dark and leaden, and there were moments when the wind abated only to gather fresh violence, catching up the crested waves and sending them in long white streaks of vapour across the scene, through which dismantled ships were dimly descried, drifting from their moorings, and steamers with steam up, ready for any emergency. Blinded by the waves as they leapt over the road and dashed against the houses, and lying forward on the wind, I at length reached the east end of the Praya, joining a number of foreigners who were attempting to rescue two women from a small Chinese boat. These women, seemingly greatly exhausted, were putting forth their last efforts to keep their tiny vessel in position and to prevent it from being dashed to pieces against the dislodged, jagged blocks of the Praya wall. Advantage was taken of a slight lull to fire off line-rockets, but these were driven back like feathers, against the houses ; then long-boats were dragged to the pier, but the first was wrecked in launching, the second met with a like fate and its gallant crew were pitched into the sea. Every effort proved abortive, and as darkness set in the poor women were reluc- tantly left to their fate.
The Chinese as I found them at home, under their own paternal Government, proved in some material respects different from their fellow-countrymen abroad. The large majority are engaged in manual labour of some sort, chiefly tillage, not be- cause of its lucrative nature, but because Mother Earth was the only friend they could trust to yield them subsistence for labour. Their rulers, represented to them by the nearest Mandarin and his crafty Yamen-runners, collectors of revenue, legitimate and otherwise, could be trusted only to gather their spoil. They were the far-reaching antennae of the Government, trained to a degree of scientific nicety to leave blood enough in the body of
