the Cape of Good Hope, as he was coming up
from Hong-Kong. They found themselves off an island, on the shore of
which a crowd of armed Chinese collected. Their situation was
disagreeable enough. Next day, however, the body of the Chinese
dispersed, and a few who remained came forward in the kindest manner
offering them food, &c. They stated that they came down in arms to
defend themselves, fearing that they were pirates, but that as they
were peaceful people they were glad to serve them. I have heard the
first part of this story from two other quarters, _but the latter part
was in both cases omitted._

[Sidenote: Burial practices.]

_April 3rd._--I took another walk yesterday into the country, and saw
a kind of tower where dead children, whom the parents are too poor to
bury, are deposited. It is a kind of pigeonhouse about twenty feet
high, and the babies are dropped through the pigeon-holes. After that
I walked into a spacious building where coffins containing dead bodies
are stored, awaiting a lucky day for the burial, or for some other
reason. The coffins are so substantial and the place so well
ventilated that there was nothing at all disagreeable in it. There is
something touching in the familiarity with which the Chinese treat the
dead.

[Sidenote: Roman Catholic mission.]

_Shanghae.--Easter Sunday._--I have been at church.... In the
afternoon I walked to the Roman Catholic cathedral, which is about
three miles from the Consulate. I found a really handsome, or at any
rate spacious, building, well decorated. The priests were very civil.
They count 80,000 converts (a considerable portion, I take it,
descendants of the Christian converts made by the missionaries ages
ago) in this province. It is impossible to help contrasting their
proceedings with those of the Protestants. They come out here to pass
the whole of their lives in evangelising the heathen, never think of
home, live on the same fare and dress in the same attire as the
natives. The Protestants (generally) hardly leave the ports, where
they have excellent houses, wives, families, go home whenever self or
wife is unwell, &c. I passed an American missionary's house yesterday.
It was a great square building, situated in a garden, and at the
entrance gate there was a modest barn-like edifice, large enough to
hold ab