194
The newspaper does not identify the author, or give a Chinese version, stating only that he was "a poet and scholar who formed part of the suite of the High Imperial Commissioner (Keying) during his late visit to Hong Kong, and was composed on board the steamer on the way back to Canton."
**
In 1981 the journals of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon, RN, were published by Webb and Bower, of Exeter in England. In 1845 Cree was surgeon on the Vixen, a steam paddle sloop. In his entry for Tuesday, November 25, Cree records that the Vixen was taking Keying and his suite back to Canton:
"A salute was fired from the battery as we started through the Cap-Sing-mun passage. On our way we were also saluted by the Chinese forts and war junks. I almost got into the bad books of Low, the Lord Mayor of Canton,' by a practical joke that Willcox, the 1st Lieutenant, played on me: he came up to me on deck and said: 'Doctor, do you know that the gunroom is full of those confounded flunkeys, and one of them is snoring in your cabin,'
I rushed down and saw, on my bed, a great body and a pair of legs encased in black satin boots on the pillow, the head at the other end snoring most lustily. I unceremoniously laid hold of him, and rolled him on to the floor. At the same time one of the servants rushed in and jabbered something, holding up a mandarin's cap with the peacock's feather: I immediately saw it was the great Lord Mayor I had treated so roughly. I apologised as well as I could. His Lordship, who was now wide awake, sat at the table and said something to his valet, who brought him writing materials, with which he set to work filling a large sheet of paper with neatly written Chinese characters. I thought, now I am in for a report to the Lord High Commissioner, and told Gutzlaff, the interpreter. Chaou, who was in the Purser's cabin next door, laughed immoderately. Soon the paper was handed in, and I got Gutzlaff to interpret it. I was pleased to see it was no report, but an ode Low had been composing on his departure from Hong Kong."
I
It seems reasonable to speculate that this was the ode which the Friend of China published a translation of a few weeks later.