future existence effectually. This I soon discovered to be beyond the
capacity of an ordinary lifetime, for whereas we, with four hundred
million subjects find three religions to be sufficient to meet every
emergency, these irresolute island children, although numbering us
only as one to ten, vacillate among three hundred; and even amid this
profusion it is asserted that most of the barbarians are unable to
find any temple exactly conforming to their requirements, and after
writing to the paper to announce the fact, abandon the search in
despair.

It was while I was becoming proficient in the inner subtleties of one
of these orders--they who drink water on all occasions and wear a
badge--that a maiden of some authority among them besought my aid for
the purpose of amusing a band which she was desirous of propitiating
into the adoption of this badge. It is possible that in the immature
confidence of former letters this person may already have alluded to
certain maidens with words of courteous esteem, but it is now
necessary to admit finally that in the presence of this same Helena
they would all appear as an uninviting growth of stunted and deformed
poppies surrounding a luxuriant chrysanthemum. At the presumptuous
thought of describing her illimitable excellences my fingers become
claw-like in their confessed inadequacy to hold a sufficiently upright
brush; yet without undue confidence it may be set down that her hands
resembled the two wings of a mandarin drake in their symmetrical and
changing motion, her hair as light and radiant-pointed as the
translucent incense cloud floating before the golden Buddha of
Shan-Si, thin white satin stretched tightly upon polished agate only
faintly comparable to her jade cheeks, while her eyes were more
unfathomable than the crystal waters of the Keng-kiang, and within
their depths her pure and magnanimous thoughts could be dimly seen to