The whole business is very puzzling, Tt is hard to make out what lies in this Opening of Hunan. Do we have a magnificent 1 joke on the part of the mandarins ori thatwhatthey have done issue to their childlike simplicity and that they mean well?' However, two things seem. clear enough: first, that ifa port is really opened in Hunan beyond the Tuvgtiog, Chengliuk will soon sink back into its origind ins ficance; and second, that no such port will be opened ifthe provincial high authorities can prevent it. They have no wish to see their revenues diverted into the coffers of Sir Robert Hart's Institution, for the benefit of Peking, the foreign bondholders, or anyone else—and who can blame them?
6th December.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.