CHAPTER II

FIRST YEARS IN CHINA--LIFE AT NINGPO--THE ALLIED COMMISSION AND SIR
HARRY PARKES--RESIGNATION FROM THE CONSULAR SERVICE


The journey out to Chinn in 1854 was not the simple matter that it
is now. No Suez Canal existed then, and the _Candia_ that took Robert
Hart from Southampton left him at Alexandria. Thence he had to travel
up the Mahmudi Canal to the Nile, push on towards Cairo, and finally
spend eighteen cramped and weary hours in an omnibus crossing
the desert to Suez, where he got one steamer as far as Galle, and
another--the _Pottinger_ from Bombay--which called there took him on
to his destination.

He remained three uneventful months in Hongkong as Student Interpreter
at the Superintendency of Trade, awaiting the return of Sir John
Bowring, H.B.M.'s Minister to China, who was away at Taku trying to
open negotiations with the Peking Government. It was this same Sir
John Bowring, by the way, who first aroused Robert Hart's interest
in Chinese life and customs--subjects on which so many foreigners in
China remain pitifully ignorant all their lives. "Study everything
around you," said he to the young man. "Go out and walk in the street
and read the shop signs. Bend over the bookstalls and read titles.
Listen to the talk of the people. If you acquire these habits, you
will not only learn something new every time you leave your door, but
you will always carry with you an antidote for boredom."

When the Minister came back in September, Robert Hart was appointed