dynasty are lying around you, another is passing away, while away in the city through the moving haze of the sunlight can be seen the palace of him of Heaven, Hung-tsiu-tsuen, who lays claim to be the founder of a new race. All around are the signs of a sanguinary struggle, yet but half finished. The inviolability of the sacred empire is broken, and conquerors have trodden its soil with iron footsteps. Your dynasty is long passed, oh, Ming! but the citizens below there in Nanking are once more taking your dress and habits. Take comfort from that if you can; but start from your troubled grave, for foreign devils from the Western Seas are holding jubilee over your tombs, and the corks from their diabolical explosive water resound in the vaulted chamber. There are none there to keep them back-Peking and Nanking respect them as they go. Oh, Ming! how are the proud, the mighty fallen, and none so poor to do them reverence!

"In returning, you may make a détour and strike into the road from the Grand Canal. The country all the way from Paoying to Nanking is in a wretched condition. Ruined villages and burned houses mark the fury of last year's war. A small crowd of old women are generally to be met with at the entrance of each village, trying to eke out a living by the sale of tea and congee to the passers-by. All the ablebodied men are gone-some were killed, but more enlisted in the Taiping army, from whose ranks death alone will relieve them. They will never return to the home of their fathers, and their possessions are in the hands of new masters. All the old women we saw were left in contempt by the Taipings to till the fields; all had lost some relations, and two of them sat down on a bank and cried sadly, one for the loss of her husband and two sons, the other for her husband and father. They killed my husband,' said an old woman, 'because he was not strong enough to do their coolie work.'

"They carried off my daughter because she was pretty,' said another to me beyond the Great River. It is all one storygirls carried off, useful men compelled to go to the camps, old ones who perhaps might excite commiseration ruthlessly murdered! One great story of violence and wrong carried with a mighty hand throughout the land in the name of the Christian faith, by men as merciless as the stones they tread on! When and where it will stop Providence alone can tell; the land is threatened with depopulation; trade, industry, and manufacture are at an end, wherever Tien-wang's commands extend. The Tien-hai-kuan said to me, by way of a joke, that, when all were slain, then truly the reign of Great Peace' would have arrived. A ghastly joke truly; but I hope, before such a state of things is brought about, 13-inch shells will be exploding in the palace of the blasphemous impostor ruling at Nanking.

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Passing by a wall and strong stockade, you enter into a space formerly covered by the southern suburb, and in which rose the Porcelain Tower. How well we remember, in the days when childhood fleeted by,' reading in Pinnock's, or somebody else's Questions, of this splendid work; nay, every map or tract or chapter concerning China was prefaced by an illustration of the pagoda, one of the wonders of the world. Now it is a white hill of ruins. Two immense walls, divided by a narrow aperture, are the only portions of the tower now standing. I hope no one ever believed that the edifice was entirely built of porcelain, because brick and tile entered very largely into its composition, and merely the tiles on the slanting roofs were of the much-coveted material. Every ship that has touched at Nanking has made a looting excursion to the white heap, and boat-loads of porcelain bricks have been carried away in triumph. Now, unless by bribery among the little Maos who surround any foreign visitors, not a brick can be got. However, tradition asserts that at the bottom

of the whole mass lies a stratum of rose-coloured bricks valuable in the extreme; perhaps I shall be at Nanking when this mine of wealth is disclosed, and then compensate myself for my present brickless condition.

"The portion of the suburbs in which this porcelain tower was situated was under the command of the Eastern King. Tien-wang, having occasion to doubt the fidelity of this gentleman, deputed the Northern King to cut off his head and quietly slaughter his followers. This was done to the number of 10,000. But now Tien-wang, to satisfy the minds of men, accused the Northern King of the wilful murder of Tung-wang (who was elected Saviour of the World, and afterwards the Holy Ghost), and slew him and his followers. After this, Tien-wang was told that Tung-wang boasted that from his porcelain tower he could command the city. Powder was ordered into the tower, and the whole building blown up. A gigantic iron basin is lying on the ruins, now perfect as ever, and beautifully wrought. What a splendid public drinking fountain it would make, even at Shanghai!

"The South Gate is pierced in a straight line through the enormous wall. A large crowd is always assembled here, for no trade is allowed in the city. Women's clothes, ornaments of all sorts, pistols, caps, and small tins of powder, marked Curtis and Harvey, but made at Ningpo, are exposed for sale. The loot of Soo-chow might some time ago have been bought here for a song. Vendors of fish, women on horseback, soldiers, flags, and chow-chow apparatus were crowded together in this motley scene. A man is lying with the cangue round his neck, on which is stated that he did not obey the celestial commands, and the head of another is hanging up in a basket. You pass under the walls through a long dark tunnel, then through three more gates and three more small tunnels, where brass guns are placed, and Nanking, the Heavenly Capital, stands revealed to your mortal eyes. But let us pause

ere we describe it. On the gate is a proclamation from the Heavenly King, on which is written-The Heavenly Father, Christ, Myself, and my Son are Lords for ever. The Heavenly Kingdom is established everywhere, and the effulgence of the Father, Brother, Myself, and the Young Lord is spread upon the earth for a myriad myriad autumns.' Let us pause before attempting to describe the heavenly effulgence, lest the description might dazzle mankind."

CHAPTER III.

THE TAIPINGS AT THEIR CAPITAL.

IN continuing Mr. Forrest's account, I should state that the matter of this chapter was originally published in the 'North China Herald,' in two papers, entitled 'Nanking and the Inhabitants thereof,' and 'The Taipings at Home.' My friend has so vividly portrayed what few have had the same opportunities of seeing, and none have so well described, that I make no apology for transferring his observations to these pages almost in full. As I do not pretend to give a history of the Taiping revolutionary movement, I will only preface this chapter by remarking that the Taiping (Peace) rebellion originated about 1850 in the southern province of Kwang-si. The founders belonged to a religious sect called God-worshippers, who in the autumn of that year came into collision with the authorities, and immediately started as regenerators of the empire; and there is reason to believe that they were sincere, and their motives pure-Christianity being their profession, but mixed with a good deal of error. Yung-an was the first city they captured; it remained in their hands from the 27th August, 1851, till the 7th April, 1852, when they left it and marched through the country in a united band, carrying all before them, ravaging and destroying many of the finest cities of Hoo-nan; and thence descending the Yang-tsze Kiang, visiting Hankow and other cities on its banks, they ultimately took possession of Nanking on the 19th March, 1853, where they established their head-quarters. Since that time they have sent forces in different directions, and have been