teacher confessed to his complete ignorance of their language. P. Giguel was the chief director of this establishment.
The Viceroy Tso, under whose auspices the arsenal was built, is also deserving of some credit, although he was not the first to see the need for a change in the construction of the warlike implements of his nation. The monthly expenditure of the whole establishment was reported at about ;^ 17,000. It appears that the authorities discharged the foreign employes, though what may have been their reason for this step, which happened just before the Japanese invaded Formosa, it is impossible for me to say, and as may be supposed, the step has proved far from beneficial.
Foochow city, one of the great tea marts of China, stands about seven miles above the arsenal and the harbour where the vessels load tea. Of all the open ports this is perhaps the most picturesque, and its stone bridge of *'ten thousand ages" proves that the Chinese, had they so chosen, might have left monuments behind them more worthy of their civilisation and prowess than their great unwieldy wall monuments, which would have shed a gleam of truth across the obscure pages of their bygone history. This bridge was erected, it is said, about 900 years ago, and displays no pretensions to ornamentation except in its stone balustrade. It is indeed evident that its builders had convenience and durability alone in view; and the masses of solid granite then employed, still but little injured by the lapse of time, bear high testimony, in their colossal proportions, to the skill of the ancient engineers who raised them up out of the water and placed them in position on the stone piers above. The bridge is fully a quarter of a mile in length, and the granite blocks which stretch from pier to pier are, some of them, forty feet long.
