The following personal experiences will illustrate life in China in the "fifties," and may be of interest to the residents of the present generation, who, in these piping times of peace, can hardly realise the stirring events which were then of frequent occurrence At that time the whole const was swarm: ing with pirates, who were the terror not only of native traders but of all who went down to the sea in ships, and many were the unlucky vessels that fell a victim to them while on the voyage between this and the Southern port In June, 1850, it was reported that all the piratical craft that infested these regions had gone to Shantung, which was then looked upon as belonging to the uttermost parts of the earth, and a party of six of us who were longing for an outing and a breath of sea air decided to risk what danger there might be, and take a trip to Povtoo. This was before the days of steamers, and by no means so simple an undertaking as it is at the present time, Our only means of reaching the island was by native boats; so we hired two small clipper looking Ningpo junks, and having muerte ati our preparations, inolading the lay: ing in of a plentiful supply of stores, we set sail and started on our excursion." Pootoo was safely reached in a couple of days, and, leaving our boats anchored in a snug' little ith us our servants and our ngs, and went to a large temple a mile or more distant, where we had secured such accommodation as the priests could offer us. The temple stood on the side of a well wooded hill, in the midst of fine old trees, overlooking a sweep of sandy beach, which gave promise of many a delightful bath. There we spent several days roaming over the hills, explore 1g the many lovely spots with which the island abounded, and enjoying to the utmost our holiday life. Among many other objects of interest, we visited the numerous recluses and devotees, who were laying up for themselves stores of good things in the next world by subjecting themselves to all sorts of discomforts in this. One of them had been standing in a small sentry-like box, not large enough for him even to ait in, for I forget how many years, his only occupation, in addition to his "devotions, having been the cultivation of his finger nails, wh were trained and supported in i bamboo sheaths and had acquired an_unconscionable length. To the culture of his nails this devotee had evidently given his whole mind for many a year, and the blank look of amazement that came over his face may therefure be imagined, when one of our party, who, by the way, had lost a leg at the battle of Muddy Flat, seriously offered him five dollars for one of the nails, including an inch or two of the finger. The offer was disdainfully declined with mutterings which were doubtless of the direst import. Not far from the temple where we were, there is a deep chasm in the rocks, called, if I remember correctly, the "devil's leap" or something of that kind, through which the sea waves surge with terrific force, churning the waters to a milk-white foam. Tuto this abyss, which presented an unusually frightful appear-Ace when we visited it, owing to a heavy gale (or typhoon as it would now be called) which was then raging, we were told that the devotees were at times in the habit of precipitating themselves, and the above enterprising member of our party proposed that we should hiro one to jump off, but this not meeting with unaninious approval was not carried into effect. Thus we beguiled our days, when an incident occurred which cast a cloud over our enjoyment, and hastened our departure from the lovely island. One afternoon, as we wore revelling in the surf on the sandy beach, our boys came running down and startled us with the information that pirates had invaded the bay where our boats were at anchor, and that, unless we went at once to th rescue they would be captured; 80, hastily dressing, we scrambled up to our temple and sei our guns started off along the winding and picturesque path that led to the bay. On our way we met a missionary friend of whom there were several spending the summer with their families there—an told him of the piratical raid, of which he seemed to make light, and said we had no reason for alarm, We thought differently, however, and continued on our way, at length reaching some rising ground, overlooking and close to the bay. Up the crest of this, with our guns ready for instant use, we quietly crept, and peering over the edge we saw two of the well-known west coast pirate vessels, towing wut a Inrge and deeply laden merchant junk that had taken refuge there, and which the pirates had captured. Just inside of them our two boats were lying at anchor, having escaped capture, probably owing to the much richer prize offered by the unfortunate trading junk. Nothing remained for us to do, therefore, but stay where we were, and we continued'to watch the junk and its captors until they had turned a point of land which shut them from our view, 'Then we hastened to our boats to assure ourselves that they were all right: the boatmen were in' a great fright, and wished to leave the place at once, but we calmed their fears as best we could, and having instructed thea what they were to do in case of a return of the pirates, we wended our way late in the back to our temple. The next morning we made full enquiries of the priests in regard to this unexpected advent f these much dreaded rovers, and were formed that they were a portion of the fleet that had gone north a month or two before, aud were now returning totheirususal hunting grounds. Tu fact, the priests were so well informed about them that we came to the conclusion they had something more than an understanding with them, and that the sooner we left these sacred precincts the better it would be for us. During the afternoon, therefore, we packed up. and sent off our traps, and under cover of the night started for Shanghai. A shar look-out was kept, and all went well with us until we had passed Gutzlaff the next morning, when we saw two piratical—they always went in pairs—standing from the sea, and heading considerably to the south of us. They continued on in this direction for some time, and we fondly hoped we should succeed in escaping their attention, but in this we were doomed to be mistaken, for suddenly—they had probably just caught sight of us—they changed their course, and made directly for us. Our consort was about a mile in advance of out boat, and the junks perhaps two miles from us.' We were going up the {river with a southerly breeze and a flood tide, and our only hope was that we should get so far up the river before the junks caught up that they would be afraid to attack us. However, we hoisted our flags, and made all the preparations for resistance our resources permitted. Our boat was armed with several guns and these we Hloaded, and laid out our rifles, fowling, ieees, and revolvers all ready for use, an javing instructed the servants how they were to reload and hand them up to us, we awaited the course of events as calmly as we could, The pirates were
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.