latter, by his excessive dignity and dramatic manner, turned a simple
action into a ceremony. What he did was to draw carefully from
his official boot a wad of fine white paper, detach one sheet, and
solemnly blow his nose upon it. The action was nothing, the method
everything. He then proceeded to fold the paper into a cocked hat,
and, calling a servant to him, gave it into his hands with a grand
bow, just as if he were presenting the man with some specially earned
honour. As for the servant, he took his cue excellently well, received
the paper like a sacred relic, and, still as if he were taking part in
some ceremony; opened the flap of the tent and threw it away.

[Illustration: THE CANAL: THE ROUTE BY WHICH SIR ROBERT HART FIRST
CAME TO PEKING.]

Still more adventures awaited Robert Hart on the short trip from
Shanghai to Ningpo; indeed I think the best and the most romantic
adventures took a certain pleasure in following him always. At any
rate, this time he was to have such a one as even Captain Kettle
might have envied; he was to be chased by a pirate junk, a Cantonese
Comanting, with a painted eye in the bow, so that she might find her
prey, with a high stern bristling with rifles and cutlasses, so that
she might destroy it when found, and with stinkpots at her mastheads
and boarding-nets hung round her. Of course he was to escape in the
end, but so narrowly that all possible sail had to be crowded on to
his little ship, and the whole crew set to work the big oar at the
stern, while every soul on board shivered and shook as men should when
pirates are after them.

Ningpo itself in 1854 was the quietest place under the sun. A handful
of merchants lived there, buried without the trouble of dying; one or