of the precious metals, is certain ere long to receive a large influx of those roving Celestials; but at present it is in the Eldorado of California that they are to be seen in the greatest numbers and to the best effect. The latest intelligence from China shows that the fame of the American gold-region has already become widely diffused throughout the south-eastern provinces of China. "During the past month," says a letter dated from Canton on the 27th of March last, "there has been not a little excitement among people connected with foreigners, and who have means of learning anything of the เ gold hills,' more especially among those whose acquaintances in California have described the advantages of the country, or, on returning to China, have spread the report of their good fortune. Letters from Chinese in San Francisco and further in the country, have been circulated through all this part of the province; and the accounts of the successful adventurers who have returned would, bad the inhabitants possessed the means of paying their way across, have gone far to depopulate considerable towns. The number of men that have gone, and that are now preparing to embark, is so considerable, and the employment which has been thus unexpect edly afforded to shipping, at a moment of great depression of freights, is so remarkable, that we have no doubt the subject will excite the attention of all who are interested in the trade of the East." The writer then gives a detailed list of the ships dispatched from Hong-Kong, Macao, and Whampoa, with Chinese passengers, between the 1st of January and the 27th of March this year; and another list of vessels which had not then sailed, but which were under engagement to go, -with the number of men taken by each. The total number of emigrants gone and going amounts to 16,807, which, taking the average passagemoney at forty dollars a-head, would give a passenger-freightage of 672,280 dollars. The total number of ships gone and going was sixty, of which one-half had sailed before the date of the letter. The details which accompany this statement leave no doubt of its accuracy, and it is still further corroborated by the last letter of the

Times' Correspondent, dated San Francisco, May 2, which states that immigrants are continually arriving in batches of 500 to 1000 in every vessel from China, and 10.000 are reported as ready to come forward in a fleet of merchantmen from Canton and other ports."

One circumstance connected with this Chinese emigration to California, is peculiarly favourable to the carrying trade between these two countries,

namely, that the men who emigrate intend to return, and will probably go to and fro. In no case, as yet, have Chinese families removed from the country, and all the social habits and national feelings of that people are opposed to such a step. Almost without exception the emigrants are adult males, and their purpose is simply to gain something by their labour in California, with which to return to their native country. It is thus that emigration begins in all countries. The young and strong, the restless and buoyant, are the class to whom the aids and comforts of home are least necessary, and on whom its ties hang lightest. It is amongst them, accordingly, that the first emigrants are found; but seldom do even they, on embarking, resign the prospect of revisiting the land of their birth and the home of all that the heart holds dearest. Even when such pioneers of civilisation were the bold sons of our own land, and when the region they steered for was the distant Antipodal settlements of New Zealand and Australia, how few of them went out otherwise than with the view of accumulating a hard-won competency, and returning with it to spend his after-life amidst the merry "homes of England." A majority of them failed, indeed, and remained in the land of their adoption; but the recollection of our readers will, we doubt not, fully corroborate our statement when we say, that it is only within the last few years-and, more peculiarly, since the monetary and commercial difficulties of 1847-that whole families have begun to forsake our shores, or that the mass of our emigrants have gone forth with the resolution of never again setting foot upon the soil of Britain.

As it has been with us, so will it,

in good time, be with the Chinese. Once the tide of emigration has set in steadily and strongly, in any country, men throw themselves into the stream as into a Lethe,—become oblivious of the past and all its enchaining associations, and think only of the future and of the land whither they are going. The Chinaman reverences his Sycee silver as heartily as the Yankee worships the" almighty dollar;" and the inducements for him to exchange his own densely-peopled country for the gold-producing region of California are manifest and manifold. If we contrast the gains of labourers, mechanics, and miners in California, with the wages received by the same classes in China, the disparity in favour of the former is prodigious. In January last, the wages of daylabourers at San Francisco were at

five to eight dollars per day, or one dollar per hour;" whilst on the Canton side of the Pacific, the earnings of a man belonging to the class now emigrating to San Francisco would not be more than four or five dollars a month. In other words, a day's work in California would earn equal to a month's wages in China! In such circumstances, unless some unforeseen difficulty should arise, there is little prospect of any diminution in the Chinese emigration across the Pacific. Accustomed to the simplest mode of living, having few wants, and moreover actuated by the strongest passion for gain, it is probable that success will continue to attend them in the Western Eldorado; and so long as the rates of wages there continue high, and toleration is extended to them by the jealous and domineering Americans, we see nothing to check the emigration - movement in that direction.

Since the above was written, news has arrived from California which, for the moment, give a new complexion to affairs, by informing us that the Americans have grown jealous of the money-making Chinese, and are commencing a species of proscription against them. The Marysville Herald of 4th May states that a meeting of miners had been held in that town, at which it was resolved, that "whereas large numbers of foreigners, and Chinese especially, are overrunning

and occupying a large portion of the mining lands in this vicinity, to the injury and disadvantage of American citizens; and whereas we hold that the mineral lands of California by right should belong to and be held solely by American citizens, therefore" no Chinaman was to be thenceforth allowed to hold any mining claim in the neighbourhood. And from a letter in the Sacramento Union, of date May 2, we learn that "the excitement in regard to the Chinese is rapidly extending along the banks of the North Fork of the American River, and daily expulsions are taking place. This morning some sixty Americans ranged down the river some four miles, driving off two hundred-quietly removing their tents, strictly respecting their persons and property-except in one instance, when a Celestial seemed inclined to be obstreperous, his cradle' was thrown into the river. The same company intend to proceed en masse to Horseshoe Bar this afternoon, to concert measures with the miners there to start' some four hundred located at that place. A band of music is engaged to accompany the expedition! Nearly all of the eighty thousand or ninety thousand American miners are fully determined to submit no longer to have the public lands robbed of their only treasure."

The letter of the Times' Correspondent, published in that newspaper on the 18th ult., states that the assumed evil which the Chinese inflict upon California is, the carrying away nearly all the gold which they amass, without any commensurate expenditure in the country; and that the Governor has thought fit to address a special message on the subject to the Legislature. The argument for the expulsion of the Chinamen is founded on the narrowest principles, and will soon be reversed; for, whatever may be the interest of the Americans to expel them from the mines, for the sake of the gold, it is still more their interest to keep them in the country, in order that, by cheapening labour, they may give to gold an additional value. Moreover, not to mention the indirect advantages of this immigration in extending the commercial relations of California with China, there

falls to be considered the direct benefit to American shipping afforded by their passage-money; the money they expend in rents, purchase of land, and building of houses; the taxes which they pay, the large sums contributed by them to the Custom-house in duties upon imported goods; the cost of their outfit for the campaign in the mines, and the travelling fare they pay in getting transported to diggings. But the Chinese know what they are about as well as most men, especially where money is in question; and accordingly, through some of their spokesmen, among whom a Celestial rejoicing in the name of Hab-Wa is chief, have published a letter in reply to the Governor's message. "HabWa and his friends' letter," says the Times' Correspondent, "is a most excellent production, and full of sly humour. They tell the Governor that in their country all great men are learned men, and that a man's rank is just according to his education. The inference is obvious, that the Governor, being a great man by virtue of his high office, must of course be also a learned' man. This is a severe hit. There is another, of a more generic character. We do not deny that many Chinese tell lies; and so do many Americans, even in courts of justice.' Hab-Wa evidently thinks the latter failing something worse than a white lie." The tenor of this letter has turned the tide a good deal in favour of the Celestials, and it is sincerely to be hoped that the prejudice against them will soon die away."

The character of the Chinese who have settled in various parts of the Indian Archipelago, seems to vary from peaceful to turbulent according to the rule they are under; but we believe our readers will peruse with interest the following creditable testimonial to their conduct, and highly amusing description of their habits, in California:

"Through their chief here, and th agent, Mr Woodworth," says a San cisco journal, "they have got po of a large tract of land on the lumne, which they have comm tivating, and are fast set are among the most

patient people among us. Perhaps the citizens of no nation, except the Germans, are more quiet and valuable. They seem to live under our laws as if born and bred under them, and already have commenced an expression of their preference by applying for citizenship, by filing their intentions in our courts. What will be the extent of the movement now going on in China and here, is not easily foreseen. We shall undoubtedly have a very large addition to our population; and it may not be many years before the Halls of Congress are graced by the presence of a long-queued Mandarin sitting, voting, and speaking beside a Don from Santa Fé, and Kanaker from Hawaii.

"While writing the above, a letter from a Chinese at home to a China boy' in this country has been shown us by Mr Gregory, and it will be forwarded by his express to its destination at the Indian Gulh, where its Celestial recipient is digging gold, and will feel himself happy by the news from home. Many letters pass to and fro between China and California; and at each departure of ships for the Celestial Empire, its children here send off to their friends beyond the Pacific, great numbers of California papers. It may be seen from this how intercourse is increasing and knowledge extending. The day of fencing the world and information out of China has for ever passed away. The glitter of our gold has passed the gates of the Cousin of the Sun and the Moon, and the disciples of Confucius are coming, and have come, to qualify his philosophy with the wisdom of Washington and the utility of Franklin..

"Gradually their wooden shoes give kindle a fire for barbecuing a rat dinner. way to the manufactures of Lynn, and The long queue eventually passes away

before the tonsorial scissors, and stuffs a saddle or is woven into a lariat. The yard-wide nankeen unmentionables are found unsuited to our windy climate an neater fashions, and are succeeded much better fit. Hats and othe rican garments succeed; ank chief distinction consists colour, the row angul

birth (22d of February) is a great day in California, as it deservedly is in other parts of the Union; and from a chit-chat letter of a Philadelphian settled at San Francisco, we give an amusing account of the part which long-tailed Celestials took in this year's ceremonial, which seems to have been quite a World's Fair sort of thing:

"All countries and ages were represented in the ceremonies of the day. Scarcely had the French, Spanish, and Hebrew societies passed from the view, before some two hundred Celestials, or, as their banner termed them, 'China Boys of San Francisco,' came before the admiring gazer. To describe their appearance fully is out of the question. Preceded by their mandarins and a band of music, straggling and evidently amused with their position, came this large delegation of our most orderly and industrious citizens. Long tails and short tails, plaited and falling down the back from beneath the fancy East Indian felt or straw hat-white, blue, green, red, yellow, and every imaginable colour of pantaloons, some loose and only to the knees, the nether part of the limb covered with a long nankeen stocking, and others made tight to the form and fitting closely, by the aid of strings, to the Chinese shoe. Many other characteristics might I mention, but no single one excited the risibilities of the concourse of spectators more than the music. Seated in an ex

press waggon were six musicians, playing tunes which to them seemed most soulstirring, although to us most heart-rending. One air (if so it may be called) was martial, and its efficacy in peace or war must be about the same as the sounds produced by a stick with smooth surface rubbed across one with the edges notched."

Of this truly remarkable race, which have thus, in these "latter days," begun to diffuse its myriads over the world, it is mortifying to think how little we know with certainty. It is an opinion universal among all who have actually been in China, that "people at home know nothing of it, except its tea and silk, its porcelain, japan, and ivory wares. Of the people, the country, the government or its policy, from Parliament and the Ministry downwards, they know less than the Chinese do of the English." A sweeping assertion, not readily to be swallowed by John Bull,

but one which the Great Exhibition of last year served rather to corroborate than refute. The products of China, indeed, occupied a by no means insignificant place in that marvellous collection, but they consisted chiefly of articles drawn from private collections, with which our home public was already pretty familiar. To this, however, at the ceremonial of the Opening, there was one illustrious exception,- -a living product of China set off by its manufactures, which, next to Royalty herself, proved the greatest attraction on that ever-memorable day. Now, who was this Celestial cynosure of all eyes? Was he a Mandarin of the red button or of the blue? How many little packets of ginseng had he been complimented he ever been permitted the rare diswith by the old Emperor? Or had tinction of riding on horseback within the precincts of the Imperial palace? Finally, had he ever been presented with a three-eyed peacock's feather, that ne plus ultra of Celestial celebrity, or with a pavonian feather with any eyes at all? Not he! he was no other than a Coolie or artisan, who had been playing the part of a Mandarin on board the Chinese junk in the Thames — or, as some of the newspapers styled it, the "Imperial junk Keying"-and who, like a pig in rich trappings, had impudently thrust himself upon the elite of nations assembled within the fairy-like walls of the Crystal Palace! The novelty of the sight, his droll deportment and bizarre cosliveliest interest of the general autume, naturally enough excited the dience; but sundry effronteries were perpetrated by him for which any less celestial visitor would have been put in the stocks, and an amount of gullibility displayed by the London journals for which we did not give them credit. It was provoking enough to see so venerable and illustrious personage as the "Great Duke" duped by this impudent Chinese, and that even around the Queen of England there was no one sufficiently informed to save her from being imposed upon; but it was supremely absurd and inexcusable on the part of the first-class newspapers to speak, and that editorially, of" the Mandarin

a

Heshing," "the Chinese gentleman in full native costume," "his Excellency the Mandarin," "the Chinese Commissioner, attended by his Secretary," "the Illustrious Foreigner," "the Representative of the vast empire of China," and suchlike grandiloquent and hypothetical titles. And yet we find one of these same leading morning papers commencing its notice of the Chinese department of the Exhibition with the self-satisfied assurance that "with no foreign country are the English more familiar than with China!" Truly, as saith the poet, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be

wise."

Without stopping to depict the only other note-worthy specimens of the "Celestials abroad," with which we are acquainted-namely, to use the words of the Canadian Patriot, "a Chinese Lady, said to be the daughter of a Canton Mandarin of the third class, her maid-servant, her musical preceptor, and his daughter and son," who were being exhibited to large crowds, a few months ago, in the St Lawrence Hall of Toronto - who "sang several songs in the Chinese language, and performed several pieces of music on a variety of Chinese instruments"-who had "learned to speak English sufficiently to make themselves understood," but had unhappily picked up "a low vulgar Yankee slang," doubtless from "the American gentleman who accompanied and described them,' but a variety of whose statements were "not to be relied on." Without stopping, we say, to tell anything more about this interesting quintet, on the strength of whose appearance the editor of the Patriot proposed “ to write two or three articles upon China," we think it time to conduct our readers to the home of this interesting people, and venture upon a word or two about the Flowery Land ourselves. have seen its "blackhaired myriads" very eager and resolute in pushing their fortunes abroad, and it is not unnatural that we should now desire to see something as to how matters are going on amongst them at home.

66

We

As our remarks in this article refer only to the present, and not to the

*

philosophy of the past, it is needless for us to comment on the remarkable phenomenon which China exhibits in the history of the world-of a people working out for themselves, in the earliest times, a civilisation independent of all foreign aid, and adhering to it so steadfastly that, comparatively, at least, though not actually, it has remained unaltered until now. Whatever changes there have been in the political administration of the empire, there has been none in the theory of government, which regards the sovereign and people in the light of father and children. To do the Celestial Emperors justice, the great majority of them endeavour to fulfil their heavy parental duties to the best of their abilities. But only consider what it is to be the father of some three hundred and sixty millions of human beings! Such a potentate, we should think, can scarcely have a moment of even ordinary satisfaction. A deficiency of the circulating medium, a bad season, an inundation, an epidemic, and suchlike miseries, are ever turning up to disturb his peace of mind, and literally "set him to his prayers." Old Taou-kwang, the late Emperor, was quite a pattern in this respect. "He was absent on no festive occasion," says Mr Gutzlaff, and in China festive and religious are synonymous adjectives; "and especially when threatened calamities seemed to be near at hand, he was very careful in the performance of his duties. If no rain had fallen for many months, he might be seen in sackcloth, like a common penitent, approaching the idols, imploring them to look down upon the nation for whom he interceded. He went through the regular fastings and preparations; and, not to be behind, he often appeared at the altar to perform the duties of a high-priest." One may smile at these things; but it is a lesson even for Christians of all degrees, to see a heathen potentate overwhelmed in cares, and burdened with the turmoil of a constant and all-important occupation, yet always finding time and heart for those rites and austerities by which he hopes to please heaven and benefit his people.