and she discovered a flaw, a thinness in the paper, indi- cating a place in the composition where one character had been erased and another substituted. The Empress rated the exam- iners for allowing such slovenly work to pass, and proclaimed Leung the victor. The superstitious Cantonese declared that it was a divine choice, that the sunbeam was a messenger sent by Heaven to point out the blemish in the essay at first selected for the prize.
Mr. Leung reached Canton in May, 1872, and was received there by the local authorities with the highest possible honours. All the families who bore the name of Leung (and who had also means to afford it) paid the Chong-tin large sums of money to be permitted to come and worship at his ancestral hall. By this means they established a spurious claim to relationship and as soon as the ceremony was over, were allowed to place tablets above the entrances of their own halls inscribed with the title Chong-iin. An uncle of the successful wrangler, uniting an exalted sense of his duty to his family with a laudable desire to repair • his own fortune, forestalled the happy Chong-iin, and acted as his deputy before his arrival, in visiting sundry halls. For such honourable service this obliging relative at times received a thousand dollars, and his nephew, for the sake of the family name, had to sanction the steps thus prematurely adopted to spread his fame abroad. To show the great esteem in which such a man is held by the Chinese, I may add that a brother of Mr. Leung rented a house in Canton, and its owner hearing that he was the brother of the famous Chong-iin, made him a free gift of the tenement.
After partaking of tea with one or two of the members of the Cabinet, and after some general talk on topics of common interest, we rose and quitted the yamen.
