the sons of rich mandarins, who pay heavily for their instruction.
These are destined to become rhetoricians, and, step by step,
bachelors, licentiates, doctors, then mandarins and members of the
governing class of the Middle Kingdom. The studies are Chinese, and
the Fathers have with wonderful patience learned not only the Chinese
language, as well as its written characters, but also the nice
critical points of its idioms, so as to be able to teach with
authority the poetry and legends and the commentaries upon the
writings of Confucius. This they have done for the purpose of having
an opportunity to convert the orphans they have adopted, and thus
by degrees introduce into the government an element which will be
essentially Christian. Thus far, the profession of Christianity is
not essentially incompatible with the office of mandarin, though it
is impossible to hold this position without performing some idolatrous
rites.

[Illustration: HALT OF THE CARAVAN AT HO-CHI-WOU.]

On the 13th of March the ice was sufficiently broken to open the
navigation of the Pei-Ho, and the party started upon the steamer
Sze-Chuen for Tien-Tsin and Pekin. They were joined by an English
commissioner of the Chinese custom-house, whose position as a high
functionary of the Celestial government, together with his knowledge
of Chinese, proved of great service. The trip to Pekin was brought to
a sudden temporary close by the Sze-Chuen running aground on the bar
of the Pei-Ho, where she remained nearly two days, but was finally got
off after the removal of a part of her cargo.

The navigation of the Pei-Ho is difficult on account of the narrowness
of the stream and its exceedingly sinuous course. Frequently the