[Sidenote:  Shanghae.]

Shanghae.—­December 4th.—­We reached this place at 3 P.M. yesterday.  I have received your letters to October 9th.  How I grieve for your anxiety about Bruce’s illness!  How glad I am he is near the ——­’s.  He could not be watched over by kinder friends.

Eagerly as he desired to hurry homewards he found it necessary to stay at Shanghae for some weeks, in order to complete the detailed arrangements for opening the river Yangtze to British traders, and also to settle the awkward question of the relations which should subsist between the British residents, and the Chinese Rebels in their neighbourhood.

Shanghae.—­December 14th.—­I am a good deal puzzled about my departure.  The opening of the Yangtze and the Rebel question are serious matters, and I do not like to leave them unsettled:  on the other hand, I can hardly, even if I were so inclined, remain here till they are settled.  I think it will end in my staying till the next mail comes in from the North.

Sunday, December 16th.—­Eight A.M.—­The mornings are lovely here now; a bright sun, rising about half-past six; and not exactly frost, but a mere hint of its presence in the air.  I take walks, and have just returned from one; generally the tour of the race ground, which is the only walk here.  While I humbly pace along, the clerks of the Hongs—­such of them at least as are careful of their healths, and moderate in their supper arrangements—­flaunt past me on their chargers.  I march on, thinking whether it would not in a new existence be advisable to begin life as a tea-taster.

December 21st.—­The wind has changed to the north, and my walk this morning was a colder one.  Yesterday I made a tour of the town of Shanghae, and find that the French, by way of protecting it, burnt down about one-half of the suburbs during the summer.  They have destroyed it to a greater extent than we destroyed Canton in 1857 by our bombardment.  ‘Save me from my friends,’ the poor Chinaman may well say.  The French have some method in their madness, for they want the ground of the burnt district, and they insist on having it now at the cost of the land, ‘as there are no houses upon it.’  At Canton, in the same way, they have seized land in the most unjustifiable way, to build churches on.

Shanghae.—­December 31st.—­Yesterday was a torrent of rain, and I never left the house.  As I have a comfortable room, and no great interruptions, I get through a good deal of my reading. ...  There was a fortnight of the ‘Times’ to begin with.  The Reviews. ...  Trollope’s novel of ‘Dr. Thorne;’ ‘Aurora Leigh’ (which I admire greatly); then Sir Robert Wilson’s ‘Russian Campaign,’ which contains some curious revelations; Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ which is audacious; &c. &c.  In short, you will allow that I have not been quite idle during the fortnight.