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172 gunboats and the war then just started at Fort Sumter rendered it inadvisable for Seward to spare any such at the moment.

So this Yankee landed in the ancient kingdom of the inscrutable Manchus from aboard a packet, as innocent of the feuds and imponderabilities of Chinese politics as he was of the conflicting and sordid ambitions of the Caucasian drummers already arrived to exploit them.

He found what Gilbert calls a pretty howdy-do—a government as old and immovable as the desert, with not even the faintest germ of a desire for "progress." Locomotives, mechanical toys, telegrams, thrashing machines, bath-tubs, and all modern improvements were to them eyesores and abominations. The worst of it was that as a plain matter of fact this government suited them exactly. It filled every want and withstood revolution and disorder in a manner to create the wildest envy in every cabinet in Christendom.

To becloud the picture one of these revolutions was then at high tide. This was being