LETTER VI

PEKING, _23rd June 1865_.

Since I wrote to you last I have neither seen nor done anything worth recording. The thermometer has been standing at from 95° to 107° in our courtyard, so there is not much temptation to go sight-seeing, or even to move outside the Legation; inside, the days are as like as twins. However, there is a bag going to-day, so I must try and patch up a letter.

We are thinking of making a move to the hills next Monday; we have almost decided on a temple called Pi Yün Ssŭ, about 12½ miles from this. I shall be very glad to go, for the town is becoming abominably stuffy and hot, and the dust is something beyond belief. We shall probably stay six weeks or two months, coming into Peking on mail days. We are forced to take our whole establishment with us, so it is not worth while going for a shorter time.

By the bye my establishment has been increased by a teacher; not as in Europe, a master who is paid so much to come for an hour a day, but a man who regularly enters my service, and is at my beck and call whenever I want him. I have taken a header into Chinese, and am floundering about in a sea of difficulties. One great disadvantage that one labours under is that the native teachers, and there are no others, of course don’t speak a word of any language but their own. At first, therefore, Ku, that’s my man’s name, and I used to sit and look at one another in a hopeless state of unintelligibility, until either he got bored, made signs of having a stomach-ache, and took his leave, or I could stand him no longer and dismissed him. However, it is surprising how quick a man may pick up, not the language of a strange country, but a jargon that will pass current, if he is dependent upon it for the everyday necessaries of life. Teachers, servants, cooks, and grooms, all must receive their orders in Chinese; shopping and bargain-driving increase one’s stock of words; so one way or another Ku and I get on pretty tolerably. He will accompany me to the hills, and as I mean to get through much work there, I hope that by the time you get this