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recently went to Siam, where he successfully concluded a trade treaty, and was now preparing for publication an account of the Siamese kingdom. His son has assembled a fine collection of insects of the local area and continues to add to it. Dr. Harland has undertaken to compile a complete fauna of Hong Kong, while Dr. Lorraine has a large collection of shells, gathered by him during his travels in America and India. Mr. Wade, the Chinese Secretary, has an impressive Chinese library and is involved in the study of the history of the reigning Chinese dynasty and informed me of a plan he had to compile a Chinese dictionary; only this plan is so immense, that one man would hardly be able to realize it. Well, that is all I know about the learned pursuits of certain individuals, living in Hong Kong. Much, undoubtedly, is undertaken in the privacy of a study and will only become known on completion. I have not said anything of the labours of missionaries: but they, on the whole, don't like to talk about their affairs. I only know, that of those living in Hong Kong many intensively study the Chinese language, not only themselves but their wives too, and I think that one can expect finer seedlings from the preaching of the latter by reason of the greater receptivity of the female nature.
As for literary works, apart from several translations of holy books, every year treatises appear in Chinese and not only theological treatises, but others, which reveal to the Chinese much useful European knowledge and the latest inventions. Perhaps some of these treatises came from the pen of one of the Hong Kong missionaries. One of them, Mr. LOBSCHEID, is constantly within the Chinese border, about fifteen miles from Hong Kong, where he is engaged in practising medicine, and to those that come to him for cures from their bodily ills, he doesn't fail to point out their spiritual infirmities as well, and the only way to rid themselves of them. I had already met him in Japan, when he was on the American ship Pageton, and now saw him again in Hong Kong, where he had come for a short time. I received from him as a gift the Japanese translation of several books of the New Testament, done by whom I don't know, but as far as I do know, not quite comprehensible to the Japanese. And so, hardly had the Japanese opened a number of their ports to foreigners before the missionaries had prepared the most essential material for their conversion. One cannot demand perfection at the first attempt: it is sufficient to make some sort of inroad; in time it will become more and more even, and improved.
To the charitable organizations of the town belong the hospital