Ow board the S. S. N. Steamers, these great beam engined boats, with their ample saloons, abundant and recherche food, and airy cabins, the voyager entirely forgets that he is sailing up the central stream of a heathen and somicivilized empire. The idea of hardship or adventure cannot for a moment be associated with such a trip, and the conviction that you are a civilized man travelling in a civilized country is only shaken when you see a heavy shoe-shaped junk lumbering along astern of you. "Thus far and no farther," how. ever, has been the decision of the diplomatists with regard to civilization in China. When you leave the Anglo. Americanized Yangtsze, or in other words when you pass Hankow, all is changed. It is to the waters of the Upper of Chinese Yangtsze that enter. prize should direct its attention. Concerning this stream, we have written recently, but the subject cannot easily be exhausted, and we return to view it in a fresh respect. Most of our readers know that the Poyang Lake is near. ly 90 miles long and about 20 in breadth, and is studded with many beautiful and populous islets. It is, however, very difficult of navigation by native boats, and therefore few people cross it. Tt follows, then, that the Treaty Port of Kiukiang has never done as much as was expected of it, though its trade since 1868 has remark. ably increased, The Lake, however, is 2 treacherous friend, as the passage of it is formidable; it may indeed at particular places and seasons be aptly described as a swamp intersected by deep water courses; but for all practi. cal purposes, and during the longest time of the year, it is a stormy and dangerous sea, its shallowness merely aggravating its dangers. The boats that bring Tea from the producing districts dare not venture on the Lake except in fine weather and with a fair wind, and the absence of these conditions compels them often to remain at their Points of departure for weeks together. As may be expected, the Chinese make use of the opportunities afforded by nature, and convert the uncertainty of navigating the Lake into a Inerative source of revenue. There is nothing the dark-haired nation are so fond of as the seizure of all chances to extract money under the pretence of duty, excise, gabelle, income tax, or transit puas. The celebrated description given by Sidney Smith of me way in which Taxation dogged the Briton from his cradle to his winding sheet, might be repeated with a few verbal alterations in this country, and would apply accus rately to the career of every subject of the Dragon Throne. Every Chinaman yearns for official rank, because official yank confers the privilege of "squeez~ ing." The people are all publicans in heart, and had the Gospel been first preached in China, we may reverently but cand diy doubt if Matthew, surnamed Levi, would ever have been an Apostle. In the case before us, the levy of taxes is so heavy that almost all foreign goods, except seaweed and lead and such like heavy cargo, are not sent by boat at all, but on wheelbarrows or men's shoulders over the country, until some safe water channel is strack, when the goods are transferred to boats. Steamers on the Poyang Lake have long been asked for by foreign merchants, but they are not yet permitted to launch them. The unwillingness of the Chinese to the introduction of novelty is the reply; for our part we believe that the rulers and not the people are averse to Western improvements. The latter are easily goaded to acts of tiger-like ferocity against Europeans, as the mas-sacro of Tientsin attests, when their superstitions have become inflamed, but as a role, the masses are orderly and peaceable and apt to learn. The Baron Richthofen, the latest traveller into remote districts, says: "The news of our journey preceded us constantly, and we found frequently tens of thon-sands of people waiting to see us, and the roads lined for miles by villagers of the vicinity; but unfortunate as this crowding is, it is impossible to be much provoked when one sees the anxiety of the people carefully to avoid anything that might give offence." There is no better proof than this description of the changelessness: of Eastern manners; as itis in the reign of Victoria, so it was in the time of Ves-asian. Hear the testimony of Phu Serves mites quidem, commercial expectant,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.