industrious well-mannered Chinese who mingled so unobtrusively with their visitors from the west.
All of these things worked together for good. There were no cables or telegraphs to vex the souls of the righteous. The P. & O. steamer, via the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, usually arrived every month, though frequently four or five days overdue, and once in a while she would not appear at all, having fetched up on one of the numerous uncharted reefs or shoals that then infested these seas. When she did arrive, there was a ripple of excitement over receiving letters and newspapars from home, and when she had departed, the little colony settled once more into agreeable repose. The towns and cities of America and Europe seemed far away—bright, shadowy visions that dwelt in our hearts as "home."
In 1862 the Messageries Imperiales of France extended their steamship line to China, and in 1867 the first steamship of the Pacific Mail Company from San Francisco arrived at Hong-kong. Vast numbers of globe-trotters then began to appear, most of them far too energetic; they insisted, among other things, on tying their own shoestrings, and in general proved very inferior lotus-eaters. When the Suez Canal was opened and telegraph cables began to be laid, then the remnant of charm that had made the old life in China so pleasant vanished forever.
In 1859 quite a new type of China tea clipper appeared in Great Britain. The first of these beautiful vessels was the Falcon, built by Robert Steele & Son, at Greenock, and owned by Shaw,
