and to take my chance of meeting him somewhere en route.  Unless I were to go back to Shanghae, I could not do much more here now; and if I put off, I shall have the monsoon against me, and great heat in the Red Sea.  Having resolved on this course, I invited the Hong-Kong merchants to come up with me to Canton, to look at the several factory sites.  In their usual way they have been dictating the choice of a site to me, abusing me for not fixing upon it; and I found out that very few of them had even taken the trouble of looking at the ground.  In short I found that, in my short visits, I had seen a great deal more of the sites than they had done, who live constantly on the spot, and are personally interested in the matter.  I started from Hong-Kong yesterday morning, and to-day I went over the ground with them.  The rain poured, and I got a good wetting....  As I was starting from the town in a gunboat to rejoin my ship, I met the military and naval expedition, which has been absent for more than two weeks, returning.  I had not time to communicate with the officers, but they seemed in good spirits.  It is a curious wind-up of this most eventful mission, that as I am starting from China, I should meet an Anglo-French force returning from a pacific invasion into the very heart of the province of Kwan-tung!—­the pepiniere of the Canton Braves, of whom we have heard so much.

March 4th.—­Eleven A.M.—­I have been calculating that if Frederick does not leave England till the mail of the 25th of February, I may, by pushing on, catch him at Galle.  This would be a great point.  I must push on and take my chance.

[Sidenote:  Pulo Sapata.]

March 8th.—­We are passing Pulo Sapata, a bald, solitary rock, standing in the midst of the China Sea, the resort of seafowl, as is indicated by its guano-like appearance.  There it stands day after day, and year after year, affronting the scorching beams of this tropical sun.  All ships pass by it between Singapore and China.  So I am looking at it for the fourth time—­the last time, we may hope.  We have made fully 200 miles a day—­a great deal for this ship.

March 10th.—­We are now very near the Line, and the breeze has nearly failed us; so you may imagine we are not very cool, but we hope to reach Singapore to-morrow.  These Tropics are very charming when they do not broil one; and I passed a pleasant hour last night on the top of the paddle-box, with a balmy air floating over my face from the one side, a crescent moon playing hide-and-seek behind a cloud on the other, and right above me a legion of bright stars, shining through the atmosphere as if they could pierce one with their glance.

March 11th.—­We have passed the Horsburgh lighthouse, and entered the Straits.  Wooded banks on either side, diversified by hillocks, and a ship or two, give some animation to the scene.  It is very hot, and I have