when her husband, Sir Walter Bea aay Suan Townley toed te Ching and Councillor of Bmboany at Peking.
When my husherd was appointed to our Legation at Peking, T went there, as s0 many have done before fall "of good resolutions. master the Chinese language quickly as possible, not only with the praiseworthy intention of becoming an efficient mistress to the ted "assortment of "boys"
colies" who made up our tablishment, Ustalso that [night have the fun'of bargaining in their own lingo with the natives in the But after a fow desperate attempts to learn the use of even the simplest household words, I renounced my studies, and T think my readers will sympathise with mo when T tell them a fow of the alificulties which finally defeated To begin with, T have no hesitation in saying' that the Chinese language is the most imperfect, clumsy, and awkward system ever invented by the ingenuity of man for the purpose of intercourse be: tween human beings, Not only is the spoken language quite different from the written one, but as thers fare in Chinese only 600. syllable sounds to do duty for the thousands of words necessarily employed in aly intercourse, dozen oF more different meanings ave attached each word, which in every case is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.