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Our Laota having

boat in the hands of trackers to round in safety. decided to take this course, we crossed the river, paddled up the eddy, which was running with unusual force, landed our trackers, and drove the boat's nose into the broken torrent while the eddy was still acting on her stem. The rudder ceased to act; our boat on entering the down current suddenly shot out towards the middle of the stream. The trackers were thrown down, and two badly hurt by being dragged over the rocks, while the boat heeled over, threatening to capsize on the instant. Fortunately our trackers promptly cast off the tow line in the nick of time, and we incurred no other danger than being swept violently down stream in the eight-knot current. Fortunately the up-river breeze still held, and the two men left on board were able to set the sail in time to get steerage way upon the boat before she drifted on the rocks below, and the Laota succeeded in steering her into the eddy on the safer left bank, with nothing lost but the result of the morning's toil. As we suddenly broached to and lay over for a minute in the boiling surf, a cry of "Ta chang" rose from the crowds on the shore, this being the technical term for this often disastrous accident. Our Laota now decided to wait his turn on the left bank, which we got up successfully, the water being shallow, and with no more harm than a few bumps on the rounded boulders along the shore.'

Unpleasant as these experiences of Mr. Little were, other passengers constantly fare even worse than he did. Not long ago Mr. Consul Gardner and two friends were upset in a neighbouring rapid, when they lost all their baggage, and owed the preservation of their lives entirely to the lifeboat which is stationed at the foot of the raging water. A few months previously, also, the junk carrying the commanderin-chief of the province of Hupeh was capsized, and the general's two sons with several of his suite were drowned. On several occasions when en route Mr. Little saw boatmen drying in the sun the merchandise recovered from wrecked boats, and he reckons that the loss of junks and merchandise in the rapids between Ichang and Chungking amounts to about 2 per cent. of the value of the traffic.' In ordinary circumstances a junk of 150 tons carries a crew of over a hundred men, of whom some seventy or eighty are trackers, who, at infinite risk to life and limb, drag the boat through the surging waters. It is in such a current, one in which fish which are too large to hide in the crannies in the rocks cannot live, that Mr. Little expects his steamer will survive. It possibly may do so; but even then one small steamer, which will have to be kept, like the Salaminian galley, for great occasions, will not vitally affect the trade on the river; and much as Mr. Little's courage and perseverance are to be admired, it may be doubted whether any practical

result will be obtained until a channel is made by clearing away some of the rocks from the bed of the river.

The tone of Mr. Little's remarks on subjects unconnected with his venture are not such as to encourage us to put implicit faith in his judgement. There is an unpleasant air of intolerance about his criticisms on those who may happen to differ from him, and on Chinamen generally. Notably this is the case with regard to missionaries, at whose successes he sneers, and on whose converts he throws doubt and derision.

We have added Lieutenant Mill's short account of his journey from Peking to the Yangtzŭ to the list of books at the head of this article, in order to point the contrast between Mr. Little's views on subjects of international interest and those of this traveller. In the charming account Mr. Mill gives of his journey there breathes the spirit of kindly tolerance and wide sympathy, which made him a welcome guest, whether at Chinese inns, Roman Catholic stations, or Protestant missions. By him every attempt to raise men to a higher level is recognised as a distinct good; and in his charitable view of the labours of others he finds no room for carping criticism and unkindly innuendoes. His attitude towards the Chinese also is that of a sympathetic and honest observer; and it is by the presence of such men in the country that the prejudices and misapprehensions of the Chinese with regard to foreigners and their intentions will best be combated.

In reviewing the political position at the present time, it cannot but be gratifying to the national feeling to see how the straightforward and considerate policy of the British Government, as reflected by the Legation in Peking, has gained the confidence and good-will of the Chinese cabinet. The several questions which have of late years arisen in dispute between the two countries-such for instance as the murder of Margery, the annexation of Upper Burma, and the invasion of Sikkim, and which, if handled in a narrow or dictatorial spirit, may have created ill-will and lasting resentment have happily confirmed the Chinese in their belief in the strict honesty of our intentions and the absence of any desire on our part to encroach upon their borders. Unfortunately their relations with Russia on the north, and France on the south, have produced an opposite effect. The unremitting efforts of Russia to advance southwards, which have been but half concealed by preliminary diplomatic assurances, and stand wholly confessed by her

course of subsequent action, have created a profound feeling of distrust in the minds of Chinese statesmen; while the policy of aggrandisement pursued by France in Tonquin has aroused a feeling of hostility towards that power to which the uncompromising protectorate she has been in the habit of exercising over the Roman Catholic missionaries of all nationalities has added force and bitterness.

As we have already pointed out, it is impossible not to feel some sympathy with the Russians in their desire to secure a port in the Pacific where free ingress and egress may be secured for their ships at any time of the year. But it is equally impossible to feel anything but amazement at the folly, and wonder at the recklessness, of the French aggressions in Tonquin. You come to China,' said a French official once to an English consul, 'with your merchandise; ' we with our ideas.' And this is true not only of China, but also of Tonquin. Having wasted vast sums of money and poured out streams of blood, they have overrun the country-it cannot be said that they have conquered or subdued it and with what result? The foreign trade is almost entirely in the hands of the English, Chinese, and Germans, while the French inhabitants, under the demoralising influence of Eastern life, which appears to have a particularly pernicious effect on the French character, are rapidly lowering their own ideas to those of the surrounding nations. Fortunately we are free from the temptations which have proved too much for the virtue of Russia and the selfrestraint of France. We have given abundant proofs of our friendly feeling towards China, and of our desire to fall in with her wishes; and we have every confidence that a continuance of the same wise and considerate policy will still further unite the two empires in the bonds of peace and goodwill.

ART. VIII.—The Life of the Right Honourable Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, K.G., G.C.B., &c. From his Memoirs and Private and Official Papers. By STANLEY LANE-POOLE. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1888.

TH HE life of such a man as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe could scarcely fail to be interesting, even if written with a much smaller amount of literary skill than Mr. LanePoole has at his disposal. As it is, the author, or rather the editor, has accomplished his task with great industry and ability. He is, indeed, occasionally guilty of somewhat ambitious writing; and in some of his comments on the course of events we find ourselves in disagreement with his conclusions; but he has been for the most part satisfied with leaving his hero to tell his own story and to explain his own conduct, sometimes, indeed, at a length which might have been curtailed with advantage. This result is mainly due to the author's very natural desire to let Lord Stratford speak for himself, and to the immense mass of materials placed at his disposal.

When approaching his 80th year Lord Stratford commenced writing his memoirs, and continued the task at intervals till within a few days of his death, at the age of 94. These memoirs, we are told, are fairly consecutive down to 1829. After that date they become fragmentary, though still full of interest.' Such as they are, they form the backbone of the present work, but are largely extended from Lord Stratford's official despatches, of which about 15,000 have passed through Mr. Lane-Poole's hands, and from his private letters and correspondence with not only his personal friends and relations, but also successive secretaries of state, ambassadors, and naval or military commanders-inchief. Mr. Lane-Poole has also drawn largely from a special class of papers, to which he gives the name of 'local com'munications.' These are the instructions written for the dragomans when sent on a message to the ministers of the Porte, with the replies as noted by the dragomans, which have been preserved to the number of many thousands, now forming a most valuable, as strictly contemporary, record of opinion and of daily work. The mere reading through such a pile of manuscript must have been exceedingly laborious; the more so, as much, perhaps most of it, had little biographical or permanent interest; and if, in the end, the author has passed some pages which might better have

been omitted or abstracted, those will most readily excuse the error who have themselves gone through similar drudgery and been subjected to a similar temptation.

The interest of Lord Stratford's career is due not alone to the importance of his services, but, in an almost equal degree, to the number of them, ranging over a period of fifty-two years. His long life and sustained intellectual power are in themselves phenomenal: his reminiscences, extending back over three generations, reach into the fourth; and events long ranked in the history of the past are now brought before us as things of the living present. It is with a feeling akin to awe that we find a man writing but a few years ago of his recollections of a schoolboy holiday in celebration of Lord Howe's victory; of his listening to a speech delivered by William Pitt;' or of his seeing the grand procession of king, lords, and commons, which went to St. Paul's to return thanks for the great naval victories.' This thanksgiving was on December 19, 1797, when Stratford Canning was eleven years old. He was born on November 4, 1786.

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After a more than respectable, but not exceptionally brilliant, term at Eton, he went up to Cambridge in 1806 as a scholar of King's College. His stay there was short. In the following spring he was appointed by his cousin, George Canning, who then became Foreign Secretary, to a junior post in the Foreign Office; and in the autumn of 1807 he was attached to the special and fruitless embassy to Copenhagen. He does not seem, however, to have vacated his scholarship till 1808, when he was appointed secretary of the embassy sent to negotiate peace at Constantinople. Even then he understood that the arrangement was merely temporary, that he was to retain his post in the Foreign Office, though with' out receiving the salary,' and might look forward to completing his residence at Cambridge. Fate had decreed it otherwise. Diplomacy he was forced into, and in diplomacy he remained for the rest of his life.

The circumstances of Mr. Adair's embassy have long been matter of history. The Turks had been coquetting with the French alliance and the Berlin decree, although, alone of all the continental Powers, they had not yet accepted it. They wished to remain neutral, but were dazzled and intimidated by the French successes. In the preceding year Admiral Duckworth had been sent to lend material support to the English ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot; but, after forcing his way through the Dardanelles, he failed in his attempt to bring pressure on the Porte, and had been glad to effect

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