generous to other unfortunates and thus show that magnanimity is not
wasted upon them.
AH SONG HI.



LETTER II

AT SEA, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: We are far away at sea now; on our way to the beautiful
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. We shall soon be where all men
are alike, and where sorrow is not known.

The good American who hired me to go to his country is to pay me $12 a
month, which is immense wages, you know--twenty times as much as one gets
in China. My passage in the ship is a very large sum--indeed, it is a
fortune--and this I must pay myself eventually, but I am allowed ample
time to make it good to my employer in, he advancing it now. For a mere
form, I have turned over my wife, my boy, and my two daughters to my
employer's partner for security for the payment of the ship fare. But my
employer says they are in no danger of being sold, for he knows I will be
faithful to him, and that is the main security.

I thought I would have twelve dollars to, begin life with in America, but
the American Consul took two of them for making a certificate that I was
shipped on the steamer. He has no right to do more than charge the ship
two dollars for one certificate for the ship, with the number of her
Chinese passengers set down in it; but he chooses to force a certificate
upon each and every Chinaman and put the two dollars in his pocket. As
1,300 of my countrymen are in this vessel, the Consul received $2,600 for