Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/402

310 and the value of his wonderful work, would have impressed any one out there. [Since those days I have often met and talked with Sir Robert Hart, and learnt to understand wherein his strong personality lay. But now the day is done, the great battle fought and won; and the great man of the East—so gentle, simple, and unaffected in manner—spent his last days in quiet seclusion in England. Lady Hart, it may be noted, is a relative of the famous Elizabeth Patterson, who was wife of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. Sir Robert's name will for ever loom large in the annals and legends of all Eastern peoples, in a way given to few.]

The following day I went on board the German mail-boat Sachsen, which left at 8.30 in the morning. From the heat of Hong-Kong we soon passed into a quite cold evening. There were not many passengers, but I found on board the Dallas Theatrical Company, this being the third time I had travelled on a boat with them. Mr. Dallas and his wife and the two Misses de Worms and some others were, therefore, quite old acquaintances.

We had a cold,stormy passage along the Chinese coast; saw many islands and more junks. The sea was a dirty tinted yellow—the colour, no doubt, washed off Chinese far inland—and even the bath was so yellow and muddy one could not use the water.

We had left Hong-Kong on the morning of a Tuesday and anchored at Woosung on the Yangtzekiang about eleven on the following Sunday morning. The only Chinese thing visible here was a village and gateway. All the German ships were beflagged for their Emperor's birthday; all ours had flags at half-mast. There is a railway from this place to Shanghai, but I went up the