Under this tacit guarantee she gained so rapidly in size, fat, and other accomplishments, that, on our return to China, after visiting Loo Choo and other islands of the Japan Sea, the gentlemen of the factory would hardly credit me that this huge monster was the same animal.  In talking of Jean’s accomplishments, I must not be understood to describe her as a learned pig; for she could neither play cards, solve quadratic equations, nor perform any of those feats which enchant and astonish the eyes of the citizens of London and elsewhere, where many dogs and hogs are devoutly believed to be vested with a degree of intelligence rather above than below the average range of human intellect.  Far from this, honest Jean could do little or nothing more than eat, drink, sleep, and grunt; in which respects she was totally unrivalled, and the effect of her proficiency in these characteristic qualities became daily more manifest.  At first, as I have mentioned, when her name was called from any part of the ship, she would caper along, and dash impetuously up to the group by whom she was summoned.  But after a time she became so excessively fat and lazy that it required many a call to get her to move, and the offer of a slice of pine-apple, or a handful of lychees, or even the delicious mangosteen, was now hardly enough to make her open her eyes, though in the early stages of the voyage she had been but too thankful for a potato, or the skin of an apple.  As she advanced in fatness, she lost altogether the power of walking, and expected the men to bring the good things of their table to her, instead of allowing her to come for them.

At the time of Sir Murray Maxwell’s attack on the batteries of Canton, the Lyra, under my command, was lying at Macao, and during our stay the brig was visited by many of the Chinese authorities.  We were also watched by a fleet of men-of-war junks, and had some reason to suppose that we might have a brush with them.  In that event, I think our worst chance would have consisted in the enthusiasm with which the Chinese admiral, captains, and crews, would have fought to have put themselves in possession of such a prize as Jean.

While things were in this interesting position, I received orders to get under weigh, and run up the Canton river to Wampoa.  Off we set, escorted by the Chinese fleet of a dozen sail of junks.  The wind was against us, but we soon beat up to the Bogue, and passed, unharmed, the batteries, which, to use Lord Nelson’s expression, Captain Maxwell had made to look very like a plum-pudding.  We had scarcely anchored at Second Bar, in the midst of the grand fleet of tea ships, when we were boarded by a host of Chinese mandarins and Hong merchants, wearing all the variety of buttons by which ranks are distinguished in that well-classified land.  This was not to compliment us, or to offer us assistance, or even to inquire our business.  One single object seemed to engage all their thoughts and animate the curiosity of half the province of Quantung.  The fame of our fat sow Jean, in short, had far outrun the speed of the Lyra, and nothing was heard on every hand but the wondering exclamations of the natives, screaming out in admiration, “High-yaw!  High-yaw!”