great advantage which the Emperor would derive from it in so extensive an empire as China; how it would make him present in all the provinces, &c.  They seemed to enter into the subject.  The conference lasted rather more than an hour.  After it, I returned to the consulate, taking a tender adieu of Gros By the way.  I embarked at 1, and got under weigh at 2 P.M....  The tide was very strong against us, so we have not made much way, but we are really in the Yangtze river.  We have moored between two flats with trees upon them; the mainland on the left, and an island (Bush Island), recently formed from the mud of the river, on the right.  Though the earth has been uninteresting, it has not been so with the sky, for the dark shades of night, which have been gathering and thickening on the right have been confronted on the left by the brightest imaginable star, and the thinnest possible crescent moon, both resting on a couch of deep and gradually deepening crimson.  I have been pacing the bridge between the paddle-boxes, contemplating this scene, until we dropped our anchor, and I came down to tell you of this my first experience of the Yangtze.  And what will the sum of those experiences be?  We are going into an unknown region, along a river which, beyond Nankin, has not been navigated by Europeans.  We are to make our way through the lines of those strange beings the Chinese Rebels.  We are to penetrate beyond them to cities, of the magnitude and population of which fabulous stories are told; among people who have never seen Western men; who have probably heard the wildest reports of us; to whom we shall assuredly be stranger than they can possibly be to us.  What will the result be?  Will it be a great disappointment, or will its interest equal the expectations it raises?  Probably before this letter is despatched to you, it will contain an answer more or less explicit to these questions.

Sunday, November 14th.—­Six P.M.—­We have just dropped anchor, some eighty miles from Woosung.  I wish that you had been with me on this evening’s trip.  You would have enjoyed it.  During the earlier part of the afternoon we were going on merrily together.  The two gunboats ahead, the ‘Furious’ and ‘Retribution’ abreast, sometimes one, sometimes the other, taking the lead.  After awhile we (the ‘Furious’) put out our strength, and left gunboats and all behind.  When the sun had passed the meridian, the masts and sails were a protection from his rays, and as he continued to drop towards the water right ahead of us, he strewed our path, first with glittering silver spangles, then with roses, then with violets, through all of which we sped ruthlessly.  The banks still flat, until the last part of the trip, when we approached some hills on the left, not very lofty, but clearly defined, and with a kind of dreamy softness about them, which reminded one of Egypt.  Altogether, it was impossible to have had anything more charming in the way of yachting; the waters a perfect calm, or hardly crisped by the breeze that played on their surface.  We rather wish for more wind, as the ‘Cruiser’ cannot keep up without a little help of that kind.

[Sidenote:  Aground.] [Sidenote:  Silver Island.]