s do so deferentially, as who should say: "Germany intends such and
such," or "These are the views of Russia." The very men who talk thus
are doing their best to force upon the great Empire all the stimulants
of the West--railways, tram lines, and so forth. What will happen when
China really wakes up, runs a line from Shanghai to Lhassa, starts
another line of imperial Yellow Flag immigrant steamers, and really
works and controls her own gun-factories and arsenals? The energetic
Englishmen who ship the forty-tonners are helping to this end, but all
they say is: "We're well paid for what we do. There's no sentiment in
business, and anyhow, China will never go to war with England." Indeed,
there is no sentiment in business. The _Taipan's_ palace, full of all
things beautiful, and flowers more lovely than the gem-like cabinets
they adorned, would have made happy half a hundred young men craving for
luxury, and might have made them writers, singers, and poets. It was
inhabited by men with big heads and straight eyes, who sat among the
splendours and talked business.

If I were not going to be a Burman when I die I would be a _Taipan_ at
Hong-Kong. He knows so much and he deals so largely with Princes and
Powers, and he has a flag of his very own which he pins on to all his
steamers.

The blessed chance that looks after travellers sent me next day on a
picnic, and all because I happened to wander into the wrong house. This
is quite true, and very like our Anglo-Indian ways of doing things.

"Perhaps," said the hostess, "this will be our only fine day. Let us
spend it in a steam-launch."

Forthwith we embarked upon a new world--that of Hong-Kong harbour--and
with a dramatic regard for the fitness of things our little ship was the
_Pioneer_. The picnic included the new General--he that came from
England in the _Nawab_ and told me about Lord Wolseley--and his
aide-de-camp, who was quite English and altogether different from an
Indian officer. He never once talked shop, and if he had a grievance hid
it behind his mustache.

The harbour is a great world in itself. Photographs say that it is
lovely, and this I can believe from the glimpses caught through the mist
as the _Pioneer_ worked her way between the lines of junks, the tethered
liners, the wallowing coal hulks, the trim, low-lying American corvette,
the _Orontes_, huge and ugly, the _Cockchafer_, almost as small as its
namesake, the ancient three-decker converted into