A AND JAPAN.

At Penang, in the Spice Islands, the verge of the Flowery Kingdom
seemed to have been reached. "We might say that that land had bloomed
over its own borders, and its blossoms had fallen here.... Nearly the
entire population of this island, 125,000 in all, are Chinese." At
Singapore, the town of lions, he met an American hunter named Carroll,
who lived with the natives and had won fame as a dead shot.
Fortunately for humanity, that contests with the aboriginal beasts a
possession of this part of the earth, the leonine fathers frequently
devour their cubs, else the earth would be overrun with the lions.

Seventeen days on the _Clan Alpine_ passed by, and then, on the 10th
of June, the captain pointed out the "Asses' Ears," two black specks
on the distant horizon, which gave them their first glimpse of China.
On Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Coffin had the pleasure of being told, by
the healthy-looking captain of the sampan or boat by which they were
to get ashore, that she was "a red-faced foreign devil." This was a
Chinese woman, of thirty-five or forty, who commanded the craft. The
next day, Sunday, they went to church in sedan-chairs, and sat under
the punkas or swinging-fans, which cooled the air. On Monday, while
going around with, or calling upon, the missionaries Preston, Kerr,
and Parker, the Americans who had a sense of the value of minutes
found that the "Chinese are an old people. Their empire is finished,
their civilization complete, and time is a drug." The walls of the
great Roman Catholic Cathedral, costing over four million dollars,
were then but half-way up.

Being a true Christian, without cant or guile, Carleton, as a matter
of course, was a warm friend of the missionaries, and always sought
them out to visit and cheer them. He rarely became their guest, or
accepted hospitality under the roofs either of American consuls or
missionaries, lest critics might say his views were colored by the
glasses of others. He would have his own mind and opinions judicial.
Nevertheless, he knew that those who knew the language of the people
were good guides and helpers to intelligent impressions. In Shanghai
he met Messrs. Yates, Wilson, and Thomson, and, in the Sailors'
Chapel, Rev. E. W. Syle, afterwards president of the Asiatic Society
of Japan. Carleton noticed that when the collection was taken up among
the tars present, the plate, when returned, showed several silver
dollars. The travellers went up t