Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 86

1859.

Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.

63

At the beginning of the present year our troubles multiplied thick up- on us; these two things befell us, famine and beating. Our appointed purveyors for some time supplied us with the worst articles possible, so that we were obliged to refuse payinent, and of course, refuse all accep- tance of food through thein. On one occasion, I succeeded in getting a man with a horse-load of potatoes into the house-no mean proof that the natives have neither eninity against us, nor desire to know of any law prohibiting dealings with foreigners. The step was taken so sud- deuly on my part, and so early in the morning, that I had my man in the lane leading up to our house, before the spies were ou the alert. A tremendous hooting drove off the man as soon as he canie in, but be- ing so near I led the horse up to the door myself. However, on going out for other purchases, we met with a frightful accident. I had a servant with me at the time, and after selecting and laying down a good price for a piece of meat, ordered him to take it home. But on hearing the spies cry out and order the rabble to run after and tear it away from him, I took the meat into my own hand, and twice succeed- ed in dissuading them from attacking me, but they were repeatedly urged on, so that I took to my heels. Through a whole long street they pursued and finally overtook, and tore away from me this pur- chase made in a way, for which we have established several precedents in the markets, where no opposition had been attempted, neither to- wards myself nor Mrs. B., whenever we laid down silver coin for the articles we took from a stall. This public attack and disgraceful defeat frightened us greatly, and certainly there was much ground for it, considering the effect such scenes have on the mass of this popula tion.

In this trying juncture of circumstances, we heard of an English bark being wrecked off Kumisan, whose captain had been brought hither by two American whalers to solicit a junk in order to take off his cargo, and wait until some ship put in, the whalers not being able to give him any other succor. It would take me too much time to spare, in this already long paper, were I to detail all the treachery with which this "hospitable" government met our application. Captain Clark had to find his way in the whalers to Shanghái, from whence H. M. S. Mariner was ordered over to the assistance of the wreck. A letter intrusted to the whalers, in which we begged succor from the nearest British authority, thus reached our consul at Shánghái, and though when the Mariner was here, I was not told she had been sent further than to Kumisan, I still incline to think the urgent note I ad- dressed to the captain of any ship that might arrive at Kumisan, and