the case of woodcuts or engravings. I feel somewhat sanguine about the success of the undertaking, and I hope to sec the process which I have thus applied adopted by other travellers; for the faithfulness of such pictures affords the nearest approach that can be made towards placing the reader actually before the scene which is represented.
The letter-press which accompanies the pictures, and which will render them, as I trust, more interesting and more intelligible, is compiled from information derived from the most trustworthy sources, as well as from notes either made by me at the time the subjects were taken, or gathered during a residence of nearly five years in China.
I have endeavoured to arrange these notes and illustrations as far as possible in the natural order or sequence of my journeys, which extended over a distance, estimated roughly, of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles.
I shall start from the British colony of Hong-Kong, once said to be the grave of Europeans, but which now, with its city of Victoria, its splendid public buildings, parks and gardens, its docks, factories, telegraphs and fleets of steamers, may be fairly considered the birthplace of a new era in eastern civilization. I will next proceed by the Pearl river to Canton, the city above all others possessing the greatest historical interest to foreigners, as the scene of their early efforts to gain a footing in the country. Thence I will cross to Formosa, an island which, by its tropical luxuriance and by the grandeur of its mountain scenery, deserves the name " Isla Formosa " which the early Portuguese voyagers conferred upon it. At Taiwan the ruin of the old fort Zelandia will be found both curious and interesting ; it was the stronghold from which Koksinga, the famous Chinese adventurer, succeeded in driving the Dutch, some of whom are said to have sought, shelter among the aborigines, who still possess old Dutch documents, and have traditions about the doings of their kind-hearted, red-haired brothers. This island is daily rising in importance, as the recent development of its resources is fostering a growing trade at the open ports, and it is destined to play a leading part in the future as one of the great coal-fields of China.
Crossing to the mainland, I will visit Swatow and Chow-chow-fu, noted for the quality of their sugar and rice, for their turbulent clans, and for village wars that remind one of the feudal times of Scotland.
I shall then pass northward to Amoy, one of the first ports visited by foreigners, remarkable in modern times as that part of the Fukien province from which a constant tide of emigration flows to the Straits of Malacca and to America, and noticeable also for the independent character of its people, as among the last who succumbed to the Tartar yoke. The river Min will here afford examples of the grand mountain scenery to be found in the Fukien province, and will form an attractive portion of the work, as the great artery which carries an annual supply of about seventy million pounds of tea to the Foochow market.
Following the route northward the reader will next be introduced to Shanghai, the greatest of the treaty ports of China, where, within a few years, a foreign settlement has sprung up, on the banks of the Woosang, of such vast proportions, as to lead a visitor to fancy that he has been suddenly transported to one of our great English ports; the crowd of shipping, the wharves, warehouses, and landing-stages, the stone embankment, the elegance and costliness of the buildings, the noise of constant traffic in the streets, the busy roads, smooth as a billiard-table, and the well- kept garden that skirts the river affording evidence of foreign taste and refinement, all tending to aid the illusion. One has only, however, to drive beyond the foreign settlement to dispel the dream, and to find the native dwellings huddleo together, as if pressed back to make way for the higher' civilization that has planted a city in their midst. Leaving Shanghai, I will proceed to Ningpo and Snowy Valley, the favourite spring resort of Shanghai residents, and justly celebrated for the beauty of its azaleas, its mountain scenery, its cascades and waterfalls; thence to the Yangtsze Kiang, visiting en rotlte the treaty ports and the ancient capital, Nankin, passing through the weird scenery of the gorges of the Upper Yangtsze, and penetrating as far as Kwci-chow-fu. The concluding journey will embrace Chefoo, the Peiho, Tientsin and Peking. The remarkable antiquities, the palace, temples, and observatory; the different races in the great metropolis ; the ruins of the Summer Palace and the Ming Tombs shall be presented to the reader ; after which I will guide him through the Nankow Pass, and take my leave of him at the Great Wall.
