Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 635

618

Progress of the Expedition to China.

Nov.

While writing I wipe away the tears, nor can I write all I wish, but add the desire that you will do what is right and enjoy yourself. To the feet of my worthy husband, his dearly attached wife sends a hundred salutations.

There are besides these, formulas for deeds, leases, taxation re- ceipts, partnership agreements, and among others one for selling chil- dren on account of the poverty of the parents to be brought up. We approach now to the end of this garden, and among other things to lead the youthful mind to wander onward, if he should have become weary, a variety of diagrams are exhibited showing the great number of relatives it is possible for a man to have, with their names and proper precedence. This is no laughing matter to a Chinese, who is taught to make a god of his grandfather, and worship his parents. To this table of pedigrees succeeds a second, in which the boy will take much more interest; it is a table of calculations showing the chances he has of being a rich or a poor man by casting his nativity at so many taels and cash per sign. It is a complicated affair, somewhat like a bramble bush, and not fully understanding it ourselves, we will not venture to lead our readers through it. As if to induce one to penetrate it, however, there are impersonations of the four seasons placed in the midst, in the shape of reverend looking sages bedecked with horary characters: very unlike they are to our representations of the seasons in the guise of flowery spring, joyous summer, mellow, ripe autumn, and shivering, scythe-bearing winter.

Last of all in this garden, sit the emperors, generation after gene- ration, from the Tae Koo, or the Great Ancient who lived when the memory of man ran not to the contrary, down to the present Taou- kwang: "May he live for ever and ever," says the loyal cultivator of this garden, as he bows his visitor out, and so do we.

ART. IV. The expedition to China: narrative of events since the battle above Canton; sickness at Hongkong; tyfoons of 21st and 26th of July; the fall of Amoy, Chusan, Chinhae, and Ningpo. By a Correspondent.

AFTER the events detailed in the Repository for July, 1841, p. 390, no moveinent of any importance took place from the period of the re- turn of the force to Hongkong, till the arrival of her majesty's pleni-