arrived at Han-kow, the termination of our voyage, having been exactly four weeks on the passage. We here met with just such another crowd of boats round us as we had two years before. We found the town in a flourishing condition, much more built up than when I saw it before. The mandarins and people were remarkably civil, and I had several pleasant walks through the towns of Han-kow and Han-yan, which is a large walled city on the other side of the river, and the capital of the province. The walls round this city are extremely thick, and are said to be twenty miles round, though I think that an exaggeration. They enclose, however, a considerable quantity of cultivated ground, and a ridge of hill that runs right across the city. Here we could not move without having three or four soldiers following us to keep the crowd off. There is nothing particular in either of these cities, unless it be a tunnel the people of Han-yan have bored through the ridge I spoke of, from one side of the town to the other. While we were going through we happened to meet the viceroy in state, with a guard of Tartar horse, armed with their six-feet bows; fine, tall, strapping fellows they were too. After the guard followed executioners (horribly ugly fellows), and a “tail” longer than a Highland chieftain’s, all wearing gaudy silk dresses ornamented with tinsel.
“On the 13th the admiral decided on going in the Coromandel farther up the river, and agreed to give the gentlemen composing the overland expedition to India a tow up in the junk they had hired as far as he went. The evening before, their fellow journeyers so far gave them a farewell dinner on board the Cowper, which was going off very pleasantly indeed; but while our enjoyment was at its height, and the champagne corks flying freely, we were roused by the cry of “A man overboard,” and though every exertion was made, the poor fellow was carried down by the current and lost; he bore the character of a very steady young man. The next morning the expedition started in tow of the admiral, and we rather astonished the Chinese by the cheers we sent after them. The admiral was only five days away, during which time they had ascended 150 miles up the river beyond Han-kow, without any difficulty whatever, the river still continuing as broad and deep as at the town, so that it is quite impossible to say how far ships may ascend. The country up the river was flat and highly cultivated. During the admiral’s absence we enjoyed ourselves in fine style, looking about us, and watching the immense trade and traffic of all descriptions that was everywhere carried on. But four-and-twenty hours put a stop to it all. One day, a report was raised that the rebels had taken the city of Wang-chow, where the examinations were going on as we passed it, and that they were marching on Han-kow. Immediately trade was at a stand-still; everyone began packing up; scarcely a shop was to be seen open; and those that were had all in readiness for their occupiers running off. I was on shore the day after the report, and could scarcely believe that I was in the same place. Men, women, and children, loaded with seemingly the first things that came to hand, were rushing out of the town. The scene that presented itself to our view it is impossible to describe. Outside of the city a flat level country was covered, as far as the eye could see, with crowds of people, getting away as hard as they were able; and towards evening the panic became positively frightful. As a party of us were coming along the principal street, trying to stem the torrent that rushed madly past us, one Chinaman who was coming along with the rest, as soon as he saw us, fell on his knees, caught hold of one of our party, whom it seems he had formerly known in Shanghai, and entreated us to go with him to his office; and there he went down on his knees again and seemed to think that now he had got hold of us he was safe. This Chinaman was a banker, and had been deserted by all his clerks and servants, who, hearing the alarm, had rushed out of the office, leaving all their employer’s capital exposed, amounting to as much silver as four men could carry, and something like two or three tons of copper cash. We had his silver removed to a place of safety; as for the copper cash the owner was indifferent to it, and seemed to think that neither thieves nor rebels would meddle with it on account of its weight. While thousands were thus escaping by land, thousands more were escaping by the river in junks of every size and shape, from the little ferry-boat into which were crowded fathers and mothers, perhaps grandfathers and grandmothers,—six or seven children, two or three pigs, and a heap of household furniture,—to the large-sized river-junks that seemed to be carrying forty or fifty families. Both the river and its tributary, the Han, were perfectly alive with boats and junks, the passengers having only one object in view—escape from the rebels. I was particularly struck with the passive look of helpless misery in the countenances of the fugitives—no tears, no lamentations; they seemed to take it as a decree of fate, against which resistance and complaint were alike hopeless. As you may be aware, the town has been destroyed two or three times by these blackguards, and each time with great slaughter of the defenceless inhabitants. It is quite unprotected, having no walls, as it is not considered a city by the Chinese, but only as a mart of trade, where the merchants meet to transact business, but consider some other place as their home. It was calculated that of all the people we saw running away at least 10,000 would die of starvation before a month was out.
“We afterwards found it to be quite true that the rebels had taken Wang-chow, and in the simplest possible manner. A hundred men passed through the investing lines at Ngankin, and shaving their heads (for the rebels distinguish themselves from the Imperialists by wearing all their hair), and dressing themselves up as Imperialist soldiers, they entered the town without suspicion, and early next morning opened the gates to their comrades, and the town fell without a struggle. One of the officials at Han-kow being asked what he thought of all these troubles, his answer was to the effect that Providence every ten years sends some minor calamity, such as famine, or inundation; but that every two hundred years some universal calamity takes place, and as the Tartar dynasty has now
