.

Whatever pretensions to beauty our ship may have possessed on leaving
England--and that she possessed some it is but fair to add--have been
greatly marred by the late voyage, and especially by the washing down we
encountered on the trip from Manilla. The effect has been to reduce our
once fairy and glistening hull to a jaundiced mass of rust and stains.
Therefore are we to go into "weeds." Black certainly gives an iron-clad
a more man-of-war look, and a more war-like effect, to say nothing of
the superior ease with which it can be kept clean.

January 22nd.--The Chinese new-year's day.--I should consider even such
a poor account of the Chinese as this professes to be very incomplete,
did it not contain something as to the manner the people observe the
festival of the new year. And just a word before I start. It must not be
supposed that I gained the information, if it be worthy to be classed as
such, on a first visit to Hong Kong. This part of my "journal,"
including the previous chapter, has received the corrections and
additions of nearly four years' experience.

The Chinese new year--a movable feast--depending, like all their
chronological measurements, on the motions of the moon, may occur as
early as it does this year, or it may fall as late as the middle of
February. It is to the celestials what Christmas day is to us, and is
observed by every true Chinaman most religiously: not, be it understood,
religiously in our and the common acceptation of the term--for China has
no religion--it possesses a gigantic superstition; but between a
superstition and a religion, I need scarcely add, a vast difference
exists. To the practical mind of John Chinaman, religious observances
are made to subordinate themselves to worldly interests.

During the time we have been on the station the Shanghai district was
once suffering from extreme drought. The rain-god was appealed to--still
no rain came. Well, what was to be done? This. The god was admonished,
that if rain came not within a certain period something terrible would
happen to him. Still no rain. The exasperated priests and people then
took measures to execute their threat. Putting a rope around the idol,
the people, with their united efforts, pulled him to the ground to
suffer further outrages at the hands of an ungrateful mob. Thus much for
their _religion_. But to continue.

The last month in the old year is spent in elaborate preparation for the
coming one. All a