THE prefents for the Emperor and our private baggage being all landed, the packages repaired, and every article minutely noted down by the officers of government, the porters were directed to fix their bamboo bearing pcles to each package, that no impediment might prevent our fetting out at an early hour in the morning. In doing this, as well as in landing the articles from the veffels, the Chinefe porters fhewed fuch expedition, frength, and activity, as could not, I believe, be paralleled or procured in fo fhort a time, in any other country. Every thing here, in fact, feems to be at the inftant command of the ftate; and the moft laborious tafks are undertaken and executed with a readinefs, and even a chearfulnefs, which one could fcarcely expect to meet with in fo defpotic a government.

According to the arrangement, on the 21 ft of Auguft, about three o'clock in the morning, we were prepared to fet out, but could fcarcely be faid to be fairly in motion till five, and before we had cleared the city of Tong-tchoo, it was paft fix o'clock. From this city to the capital, I may venture to fay, the road never before exhibited fo motley a groupe. In front marched about three thoufand porters, carrying fix hundred packages; fome of which were fo large and heavy, as to require thirty-two bearers: with thefe were mixed a proportionate number of inferior officers, each having the charge and fuperintendence of a divifion.

IF no traces remained, nor any authorities could be produced of the antiquity of the Chinefe nation, except the written character of their language, this alone would be fufficient to decide that point in its favour. There is fo much originality in this language, and fuch a great and effential difference between it and that of any other nation not immediately derived from the Chinefe, that not the moft diftant degree of affinity can be difcovered, either with regard to the form of the character, the fyftem on which it is constructed, or the idiom, with any other known language upon the face of the globe. Authors, however, and fome of high reputation, have been led to fuppofe that, in the Chinefe character, they could trace feme relation to thofe hieroglyphical or facred inferiptions found among the remains of the ancient Egyptians; others have confidered it to be a modification of hieroglyphic writing, and that each character was the fymbol or comprehenfive form of the idea it was meant to exprefs, or, in other words, an abftract delineation of the object intended to be reprefented.

WE had no fooner paffed the fummit of the high mountain Me-lin, and entered the province of Quan-tung, or Canton, than a very fenfible difference was perceived in the conduct of the inhabitants. Hitherto the Embaffy had met with the greateft: refpect and civility from all claffes of the natives, but now even the peafantry ran out of their houfes, as we paffed, and bawled after us Queitze-fan-quei, which, in their language, are opprobrious and contemptuous expreffions, fignifying foreign devils, imps; epithets that are beftowed by the enlightened Chinefe on all foreigners. It was obvious, that the haughty and infolent manner in which all Europeans refiding at, or trading to, the port of Canton are treated, had extended itfelf to the northern frontier of the province, but it had not croffed the mountain Me-lin; the natives of Kiang-fee being a quiet, civil, and inoffenfive people. In Quan-tung the farther we advanced, the more rude and infolent they became. A timely rebuke, however, given to the governor of Nau-fheun-foo by Van-ta-gin, for applying the above-mentioned opporbrious epithets to the Britifh Embaffy, had a good effect on the Canton officers, who were now to be our conductors through their province.

This contempt of foreigners is not confined to the upper ranks, or men in office, but pervades the very loweft clafs who, whilft they make no fcruple of entering into the fervice of foreign merchants refiding in the country, and accepting the moft menial employments under them, performing the duties of their feveral offices with diligence, punctuality, and fidelity, affect, at the fame time, to defpife their employers, and to confider them as placed, in the fcale of human beings, many degrees below them.

THE late period at which the nations of Europe became firft acquainted with the exiftence even of that vaft extent of country comprehended under the name of China, the difficulties of accefs to any part of it when known, the peculiar nature of the language which, as I have endeavoured to prove, has no relation with any other either ancient or modern, the extreme jealoufy of the government towards foreigners, and the contempt in which they were held by the loweft of the people, may ferve, among other caufes, to account for the very limited and imperfect knowledge we have hitherto obtained of the real hiftory of this extraordinary empire: for their records, it feems, are by no means deficient, for two centuries at lead before the Chriftian era, down to the prefent time, the tranfactions of each reign are amply detailed without any interruption. They have even preferved collections of copper coins, forming a regular feries of the different Emperors that have filled the throne of China for the laft two thoufand years. Such a collection, though not quite complete, Sir George Staunton brought with him to England.

Before this time, when China confifted of a number of petty ftates or principalities, the annals of the country are faid to abound with recitals of wars and battles and bloodfhed, like thofe of every other part of the world.