one, because no
doubt the relations of the Cantonese with the foreign population were
very unsatisfactory, and a settlement was sooner or later inevitable.
But nothing could be more contemptible than the origin of our existing
quarrel. We moved this evening to the Barrier Forts, within about two
miles of Canton, and very near the place where the troops are to land
for the attack on the city. I have been taking walks on shore the last
two or three days on a little island called Dane's Island, formed of
barren hills, with little patches of soil between them and on their
flanks, cultivated in terraces by the industrious Chinese. The people
seemed very poor and miserable, suffering, I fear, from this horrid
war. The French Admiral sent on shore to Whampoa some casks of damaged
biscuit the other day, and there was such a rush for it, that some
people were, I believe, drowned. The head man came afterwards to the
officer, expressed much gratitude for the gift, but said that if it
was repeated, he begged notice might be given to him, that he might
make arrangements to prevent such disorder. The ships are surrounded
by boats filled chiefly by women, who pick up orange-peel and offal,
and everything that is thrown overboard. One of the gunboats got
ashore yesterday, within a stone's-throw of the town of Canton, and
the officer had the coolness to call on a crowd of Chinese, who were
on the quays, to pull her off, which they at once did! Fancy having to
fight such people!

_Christmas Day_.--Who would have thought, when we were spending that
cold snowy Christmas Day last year at Howick, that _this_ day would
find us separated by almost as great a distance as is possible on the
surface of our globe! and that I should be anchored, as I now am,
within two miles of a great city, doomed, I fear, to destruction, from
the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours. We have
moved a little farther up the river this morning, and as we are, like
St. Paul, dropping an anchor from the stern, I have had over my head
for several hours the incessant dancing about and clanking of a
ponderous chain-cable, till my brains are nearly all shaken out of
their place.

_December 26th._--I have a second letter from Yeh, which is even more
twaddling than the first. They say that he is all day engaged in