Page:The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches.djvu/89



.—No experience is set down in the following letters which had to be invented. Fancy is not needed to give variety to the history of a Chinaman’s sojourn in America. Plain fact is amply sufficient.

, 18—.

EAR CHING-FOO: It is all settled, and I am to leave my oppressed and overburdened native land and cross the sea to that noble realm where all are free and all equal, and none reviled or abused—America! America, whose precious privilege it is to call herself the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. We and all that are about us here look over the waves longingly, contrasting the privations of this our birthplace with the opulent comfort of that happy refuge. We know how America has welcomed the Germans and the Frenchmen