When the barriers which prevent free access to the interior of the country shall have been removed, the Christian civilisation of the West will find itself face to face, not with barbarism, but with an ancient civilisation in many respects effete and imperfect, but in others not without claims on our sympathy and respect.  In the rivalry which will then ensue, Christian civilisation will have to win its way among a sceptical and ingenious people, by making it manifest that a faith which reaches to Heaven furnishes better guarantees for public and private morality than one which does not rise above the earth.

At the same time the machina-facturing West will be in presence of a population the most universally and laboriously manufacturing of any on the earth.  It can achieve victories in the contest in which it will have to engage only by proving that physical knowledge and mechanical skill, applied to the arts of production, are more than a match for the most persevering efforts of unscientific industry.

The journal proceeds as follows, under date of the 29th of March:—­

I shall be a little curious to see my next letters.  The truth is, that the whole world just now are raving mad with a passion for killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person in his sober senses like myself to keep his own among them.  However I shall be glad to see what Parliament says about Canton.

[Sidenote:  Baths for the million.] [Sidenote:  Malevolence towards Chinese.]

March 30th.—­Baron Gros arrived to-day.  I forgot to mention that I visited the town of Shanghae yesterday, and among other things went into a bathing establishment, where coolies were getting steamed rather than bathed at rather less than a penny a head, which penny includes, moreover, a cup of tea.  So that these despised Chinamen have bathing-houses for the million.  With us they are a recent invention:  they have had them, I believe, for centuries.  I am told that they are much used by the labouring class.  I was struck by an instance of the malevolence towards the Chinese, which I met with to-day.  Baron Gros told me that a boat with some unarmed French officers and seamen got adrift at a place called the Cape of Good Hope, as he was coming up from Hong-Kong.  They found themselves off an island, on the shore of which a crowd of armed Chinese collected.  Their situation was disagreeable enough.  Next day, however, the body of the Chinese dispersed, and a few who remained came forward in the kindest manner offering them food, &c.  They stated that they came down in arms to defend themselves, fearing that they were pirates, but that as they were peaceful people they were glad to serve them.  I have heard the first part of this story from two other quarters, but the latter part was in both cases omitted.

[Sidenote:  Burial practices.]