The Chinese soldier is very variously armed. Strict etiquette requires him to be provided with shield and a helmet-generally carved and painted into the shape of some fantastic monster-two swords, a bow and arrows, a matchlock, and a spear. But instead of this embarrassing load of weapons, the soldier has usually a gun, or a bow, and perhaps a sword: or, it may be, only a club, like Harlequin's sword of lath. The defensive part of his equipment is generally forthcoming; a man may have a defective matchlock, or bone-tipped arrows, or a worthless sword; but he has usually a quilted linen cuirass, a conical wooden helmet carved into a griffin's head, and a shield of such gaudy ugliness that it would frighten an English child into fits. The Tartars have good swords, however-long, two-edged, and cutting-and are mostly well provided with efficient matchlocks, or, what is almost as good, the national bow. Their cavalry are reported to be well mounted and armed with cuirasses of quilted leather, or brass mail, helmets, long furred boots, and a perfect arsenal of weapons, chiefly missile.

son of barbers. Just so, a soldier's son being a strong-walled city, shamefully succumbed comes a soldier. The armies of the Flowery at the first assault of the Taipings, who butLand are composed of the posterity of those chered them like sheep in the horrible sack of warriors who accompanied the present dynasty the place. It was razed, and sown with salt. of Tartar emperors, and of those who unsuccessfully resisted the Mantchou invasion. This causes the division of the army into the two great classes of the Tartar and the Chinese soldiery; the Tartars being subdivided again. Of these classes the Tartars rank the highest their generals take precedence; to their valour is committed the care of the emperor's person, the sacred city of Pekin, and the standard of the Imperial Dragon. They are better armed and better clad than the Chinese soldier, and their pay is higher. While a Chinese soldier of infantry (the cavalry is entirely Tartar) receives three taels a month, a Tartar foot soldier receives four, and a trooper four and a half, besides an allowance for forage. A tael may average from six to seven shillings. Three taels a month, or from eighteen to twenty-one shillings, for a Chinese soldier, at first sight seems most liberal pay, considering how frugal the people are, and how cheap the rice, and fish, and nondescript vegetables on which they subsist. But, this handsome salary of the soldier only exists on paper. Probably the full amount is drawn from the Pekin treasury, The Tartar army has several subdivisions. but it melts like snow in the sun, as it passes Besides those numerous Tartar cohorts which through the hands of innumerable officials. have been naturalised in the rich lowlands, When the clerks are gorged with plunder, the there are, in the imperial pay, the brigades, or military mandarin has to be satisfied. Lucky is hordes (Or-da or Oda is the local name), of the soldier if he receive one tael, or from six to the Mongolians, who border on the great unexseven shillings, for his monthly subsistence; and plored desert of Sha-mo: or, as the Thibet people even this wretched pittance is often months in call it, Gobi. There are the tribes of Chinese arrear. Of course, if this were all he had to Turkistan, said to be singularly warlike and look to, even the proverbial obedience of the hardy; the Oghuzes, or Irghuzes, a Mongol Chinaman would fail; the poor starved wretch race verging on the valley of the Amoor; would run away, turn pirate, robber, rebel, any-choicest and most valued of all, the horsemen of thing. But if the soldier sees but little of the Mantchouria, of the same stock as the imperial emperor's money, the emperor asks for but family, and who may be called the emperor's little of the soldier's time. Accordingly, the pri- clansmen, the most trusted and faithful of his vate soldier is in his leisure moments a boatman, followers. These Mantchou troops, who are rea labourer, or a watchman to merchants' ware- ported to consist of two hundred thousand houses and barges. He gets leave of absence, fighting men, on the lowest computation, form and helps to gather in the rice and bean crop, for the emperor's real dependence, furnish his his relations, or for any one who will pay him. body-guard, and afford perhaps the only stable Here, again, comes in the military mandarin, to bulwark the imperial dynasty possesses. They whose hands two-thirds of his men's pay are do not, it is said, consist exclusively of sticking already, and he claims a share in the pro- horse, but have a due proportion of infantry fits of labour. It is said that Yen-Lin-Ti, the very and artillery, well trained by Russian deserters, general who so chivalrously abandoned the un- who are sure of high pay and good treathappy city of Nankin to the Taiping rebels, ment if competent drill-sergeants. Those were made a constant practice of hiring out the regi- Mantchou troops who in 1850, on the borders ments under his command, as leaf-pickers in the of China, signally repulsed, by a dauntless front tea-groves. Imagine the Buffs, or the Forty-se- and a fire of murderous accuracy, the Ruscond, employed in agriculture, or working on the sian brigade which was in pursuit of the emirailways, to halve their wages with a prudent co-grating tribes of Kipzak Tartars. Mantchou lonel! Also, there are towns, villages, and tracts troops, and Mantchou troops alone, have hitherto of land, which belong to certain hereditary regi- succeeded in barring the road to Pekin against ments, and which are farmed and inhabited by the victorious Taiping insurgents, who have twice them. A town on the Yang-tse belonged to threatened to seize the Grand Canal and starve the long-descended corporation of the Tartar or storm the capital, but have met with more Bannermen, who were the privileged guardians than their match. Finally, if unvarying Chinese of the "little" Dragon standard, and who, information is to be believed, those were Mantthough numbering ten thousand men, and hold-chou veterans who, under their famous general

Had these been the sole supports of the Chinese government, the rebels, inspired by a thirst for plunder and a furious fanaticism, none the less furious because its purport is unintelligible, would have been the masters of all Southern China years ago. But, although Lowland China has not, as India has, any hereditary families or tribes of martial adventurers, there are generally in every village a few young men who are more restless, bolder, THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

Published at the Office, No. 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Strand.

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

N. 72]

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1860.

[PRICE 2d.

to befriend her. Hers was the more bitter

A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE. thought that their narrow means should pre

CHAPTER VI.

judice her brother's chances of recovery, for his chest had shown symptoms of dangerous disease, requiring all that climate and consummate care might do to overcome. Preyed on incessantly by this reflection, unable to banish it, equally unable to resist its force, she took the first and only step she had ever adventured without his knowledge, and written to her uncle a long letter of explanations and entreaty.

OUR life at the Rosary-for it was our life now of which I have to speak-was one of unbroken enjoyment. On fine days we fished, that is, Crofton did, and I loitered along some river's bank till I found a quiet spot to plant my rod, and stretch myself on the grass, now reading, oftener dreaming, such glorious dreams as only come in the leafy shading of summer time, to a I saw the letter; I read it carefully. It mind enraptured with all around it. The lovely was all that sisterly love and affection could scenery and the perfect solitude of the spot dictate, accompanied by a sense of dignity, that ministered well to my fanciful mood, and left if her appeal should be unsuccessful, no slight me free to weave the most glittering web of should be passed upon her brother, who was incident for my future. So utterly was all the unaware of the step thus taken. To express past blotted from my memory, that I recalled this sufficiently, she was driven to the acknownothing of existence more remote than my first ledgment that Edward would never have himself evening at the cottage. If for a passing instant stooped to the appeal; and so careful was she a thought of bygones would obtrude, I hastened of his honour in this respect, that she repeated to escape from it as from a gloomy reminiscence.--with what appeared to me unnecessary inI turned away as would a dreamer who dreaded sistence--that the request should be regarded to awaken out of some delicious vision, and who would not face the dull aspect of reality. Three weeks thus glided by of such happiness as I can scarcely yet recal without emotion! The Croftons had come to treat me like a brother; they spoke of family events in all freedom before me; talked of the most confidential things in my presence, and discussed their future plans and their means as freely in my hearing as though I had been kith and kin with them. I learned that they were orphans, educated and brought up by a rich, eccentric uncle, who lived in a sort of costly reclusion in one of the Cumberland dales: Edward, who had served in the army, and been wounded in an Indian campaign, had given up the service in a fit of impatience at being passed over in promotion. His uncle resented the rash step by withdrawing the liberal allowance he had usually made him, and they quarrelled. Mary Crofton, espousing her brother's side, quitted her guardian's roof to join his, and thus had they rambled about the world for two or three years, on means scanty enough, but still suffficient to provide for those who neither sought to enter society nor partake of its pleasures.

As I advanced in the intimacy, I became de positary of the secrets of each. Edward's was the sorrow he felt for having involved his sister in his own ruin, and been the means of separating her from one so well able and so willing

as hers, and hers only. In fact, this was the uppermost sentiment in the whole epistle. I ventured to say as much, and endeavoured to induce her to moderate in some degree the amount of this pretension; but she resisted firmly and decidedly. Now I have recorded this circunstance here-less for itself than to mention how by its means this little controversy led to a great intimacy between us-inducing us, while defending our separate views, to discuss each other's motives, and even characters, with the widest freedom. I called her enthu siast, and in return she styled me worldly and calculating; and, indeed, I tried to seem so, and fortified my opinions by prudential maxims and severe reflections I should have been sorely indisposed to adopt in my own case. I believe she saw all this. I am sure she read me aright, and perceived that I was arguing against my own convictions. At all events, day after day went over, and no answer came to the letter. I used to go each morning to the post in the village to inquire, but always returned with the same disheartening tidings, "Nothing to-day!"

One of these mornings it was, that I was returning disconsolately from the village, Crofton, whom I believed at the time miles away on the mountains, overtook me. He came up from behind, and passing his arm within mine, walked on for some minutes without speaking. I saw

VOL. III.

72

plainly there was something on his mind, and I half dreaded lest he might have discovered his sister's secret, and have disapproved of my

share in it.

of starting a new topic than anything else, and taking the letter half mechanically, I thrust it in my pocket. One or two efforts we made at conversation were equally failures, and it was a "Algy," said he, calling me by my Christian relief to me when Crofton, suddenly remembername, which he very rarely did, "I have some-ing some night-lines he had laid in a mountain thing to say to you. Can I be quite certain that you'll take my frankness in good part ?" You can," I said, with a great effort to seem calm and assured.

"You give me your word upon it ?"

I do," said I, trying to appear bold; my hand be witness of it."

"and

"Well," he resumed, drawing a long breath, "here it is: I have remarked that for above a week back you have never waited for the postboy's return to the cottage, but always have come down to the village yourself."

I nodded assent, but said nothing. "I have remarked, besides," said he, “that, when told at the office there was no letter for you, you came away sad-looking and fretted, scarcely spoke for some time, and seemed altogether downcast and depressed."

66

I don't deny it," I said, calmly. "Well," continued he, "some old experiences of mine have taught me that this sort of anxiety has generally but one source, with fellows of our age, and which simply means that the remittance we have counted upon as certain, has been, from some cause or other, delayed. Isn't that the truth ?"

"No," said I, joyfully, for I was greatly relieved by his words; "no, on my honour, nothing of the kind.”

"I may not have hit the thing exactly," said he, hurriedly, "but I'll be sworn it is a money matter, and if a couple of hundred pounds be of the least service

"My dear, kind-hearted fellow," I broke in, "I can't endure this longer; it is no question of money; it is nothing that affects my means, though I half wish it were, to show you how cheerfully I could owe you my escape from a difficulty-not, indeed, that I need another tie to bind me to you—" But I could say no more, for my eyes were swimming over, and my lips trembling.

"Then," cried he, "I have only to ask pardon for thus obtruding upon your confidence."

lake a few miles off, hastily shook my hand, and said, "Good-by till dinner-time."

When I reached the cottage, instead of entering, I strolled into the garden, and sought out a little summer-house of sweetbriar and honeysuckle, on the edge of the river. Some strange, vague impression was on me that I needed time and place to commune with myself and be alone; that a large unsettled account lay between me and my conscience, which could not be longer deferred; but, of what nature, how originating, and how tending, I know nothing what

ever.

I resolved to submit myself to a searching examination, to ascertain what I might about myself. In my favourite German authors I had frequently read that men's failures in life were chiefly owing to neglect of this habit of selfinvestigation; that though we calculate well the dangers and difficulties of an enterprise, we omit the more important estimate of what may be our own capacity to effect an object, what are our resources, wherein our deficiencies.

"Now for it," I thought, as I entered the little arbour-" now for it, Potts; kiss the book, and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

As I said this, I took off my hat and bowed respectfully around to the members of an imaginary court. "My name," said I, in a clear and respectful voice, "is Algernon Sydney Potts. If I be pushed to the avowal, I am sorry it is Potts! Algernon Sydney do a deal, but they can't do everything-not to say that captious folk see a certain bathos in the collocation with my surname. Can a man hope to make such a name illustrious? Can he aspire to the notion of a time when people will allude to the great Potts, the celebrated Potts, the immortal Potts ?" I grew very red, I felt my cheek on fire as I uttered this, and I suddenly bethought me of Mr. Pitt, and I said aloud, " And, if Pitt, why not Potts ?" That was a most healing recollection. I revelled in it for a long time.

I was too full of emotion to do more than How true is it," I continued, "that the halo of squeeze his hand affectionately, and thus we greatness illumines all within its circle, and the walked along, side by side, neither uttering a man is merged in the grandeur of his achieveword. At last, and as it were with an effort, ments. The men who start in life with highby a bold transition to carry our thoughts into sounding designations have but to fulfil a foreanother and very different channel, he said, gone pledge-to pay the bill that Fortune has "Here's a letter from old Dyke, our landlord. endorsed. Not so was our case, Pitt. To us is The worthy father has been enjoying himself in it to lay every foundation-stone of our future a tour of English watering-places, and has now greatness. There was nothing in your surname started for a few weeks up the Rhine. His ac-to foretel you would be a Minister of State at count of his holiday, as he calls it, is amusing; one-and-thirty-there is no letter in mine to innor less so is the financial accident to which he owes the excursion. Take it, and read it," he added, giving me the epistle. "If the style be the man, his reverence is not difficult to decipher." I bestowed little attention on this speech, uttered, as I perceived, rather from the impulse

dicate that I shall be. But what is it that I am to be? Is it Poet, Philosopher, Politician, Soldier, or Discoverer? Am I to be great in Art, or illustrious in Letters? Is there to be an ice tract of Behring's Straits called Potts's Point, or a planet styled Pottsium Sidus? And

when centuries have rolled over, will historians amination; not very painful, certainly, inasmuch have their difficulty about the first Potts, and as it was rather flattering than otherwise." what his opinions were on this subject or that ?" "I really cannot understand you, Rose." Then came a low soft sound of half-suppressed 'I'm not surprised," said she, laughing again. laughter, and then the rustle of a muslin dress"It was some time before I could satisfy myself hastily brushing through the trees. I rushed that he was not talking to somebody else, or out from my retreat and hurried down the walk. reading out of a book, and when, peeping No one to be seen-not a soul; not a sound, through the leaves, I perceived he was quite either, to be heard. alone, I almost screamed out with laughing." "But why, child? What was the absurdity that amused you?”