In the city of Hang Chow, there lived a beggar chief "Round Head" named Kim Laon Ta, whose office had decended to him through seven generations. His establishment was perfect, he lived in a good house, cultivated fine fields and gardens, wore rich clothes, and ate good food. His granaries were well stocked, his bag was well supplied with cash, and he had both male and female servants. Although he was not extremely rich, still he had sufficient wealth. Kim Laon Ta finding that he had a compentency, did not wish to mix any longer with the beggars, and determined to give up his office to a relation named Kim Lae Choo or "Kim the Leper." Although he did this, his neighbours still called him "Round Head," and this name he always retained.

Kim Laon Ta was then upwards of 50 years of age, had buried his wife and had no son. He had however a daughter named Yuk Noo, who was a perfect beauty. Her father loved her as though she were some precious jewel, and, in her youth, taught her to read, so that when she was 15 or 16 years old, she was a complete mistress of poetry, and could readily compose. She was, moreover, perfectly skilled in female accomplishments and could play upon the harp and lute, indeed, was clever in every respect. Kim Laon Ta, relying upon his daughter's beauty and talents, determined to marry her to some scholar, but although many good and old families would have liked to have this girl allied to them, it was no easy matter, because she had been born in the family of the Beggar Chiefs. For this reason none of them came to demand her in marriage. As for the middle classes, Kim Laon Ta would not accept any of them, and therefore his daughter arrived at the age of eighteen, without ever having been betrothed.

One day an old neighbour came and informed him that at Ta Ping Koaon lived a young man named Mô Ke, who was 20 years old, possessed extraordinary talents, and was a perfect scholar, but because his parents had died while he was young, and because his family was very poor, he had not yet married. As soon as he had passed a certain examination, he would obtain office, and he wished then to marry into a rich family.

"Now" says the neighbour, "this young man being a good match for your daughter, why not invite him to be your son in law?”

Kim Laon Ta said, "I will trouble you my friend to act for me, if you have no objection."

The old neighbour having received instructions, proceeded to Ta Ping Koaon and having found Mô Ke, informed him of his errand and said,

"In truth I have no desire to deceive you, for Kim Laon Ta's ancestors were Beggar Chiefs, but for a long time he himself has not acted as such, and he is very fond of his daughter, he is also a wealthy man, so if you Mr. Bachelor do not dislike and reject this offer, I am in a position to arrange the affair."

Although Mô Ke did not utter a word in reply to this proposal, yet he thought to himself, I now do not possess a sufficiency of food or clothing and am unable to marry, so why not condescend to enter this family, which will

ensure me a competency? I do not care for the shame of being laughed at! After thinking for a few minutes he said to the old man, "What you say is very fine, but my family is poor and I am unprovided with the bridal presents, so what is to be done?"

He replied, "If you will really consent you shall have no occasion to go to the expense even of a single sheet of paper, for I will undertake to provide you with every thing that is necessary."

The old man then returned and both parties having agreed, a lucky day was chosen for the ceremony, Kim's family sent Mô Ke a complete suit of new clothes and the marriage took place. Mô Ke seeing that Yuk Noo was talented and handsome, that he had not had to spend a single cash, and had thus easily obtained a beautiful wife, and that he was besides now amply supplied with food and clothes was greatly delighted also; his old friends and companions knowing that Mô Ke was miserably poor did not laugh or joke at him for having thus married.

At the expiration of a month after the marriage, Kim Laon Ta prepared a great feast and instructed his son in law to invite his fellow students and friends to the entertainment, but he did not ask any of his own family. After they had kept it up for 6 or 7 days, his relation Kim the Leper became angry, and thought to himself, he is a Round Head and I am one also, but though he happens to be possessed of a little wealth, still our ancestors are from the same stock, so he is no better than I am. Upon the occasion of my niece Yuk Noo being married he ought to have invited me to join in the congratulation. Although Kim Laon Ta's son in law is a Bachelor of Arts, he does not yet hold any high office in the State, moreover I am his relation and ought to be treated and respected as such. I will now go and see if I cannot do something to annoy them and teach them not to be too conceited. He then collected 50 or 60 beggars and took them with him to the house of Kim Laon Ta, who, hearing a noise, opened the door to know the cause, and saw that Kim the Leper had come accompanied by a whole family of beggars, who all pushed into the house and entered the hall where Kim the Leper seated himself upon a mat and set to work immediately to devour the good meats and wines, laid out there, saying at the same time, "Make haste and call my nephew the bridegroom and his wife to pay their respects to their uncle." The guests hearing this exclamation all hastened away from the feast, and together with Mô Ke, went to hide themselves. Kim Laon Ta had no resource but could only say over and over again, "The company here to-day were invited by my son in law, and it is no business of yours, on another day you can come and drink a cup of wine and talk with us," then taking some money, he distributed it amongst the beggars, and calling for a couple of jars of good wine with some live fowls and geese, he asked them to carry all to the house of Kim the Leper and there have a feast. But they would not go away till it was dark. Yuk Noo in her chamber fairly cried with rage and Mô Ke passed that night at a friend's house.

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

Did any one ever get to the end of "Rasselas"? His name who made that doleful circumnavigation—who reached that weary Ultima Thule--his name ought to live in History. But there are people still living who have been to the end of the "Happy Valley," and some-considering the magnitude of the undertaking, not a few-have even been there on foot.

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And, you may seek very closely through a great many places before you will find any spot lovelier than that end of the Happy Valley. Especially you will go there on a bright evening, not too hot, in the sweetest hour of all the twenty-four, when the West is all golden, and the East all, rosy with the changeful colors of the unseen setting sun, long arches of deep violet trembling across the whole sky, as the tints come out pale blue in the zenith, and marvellous green on the horizon. Then the orange of the Kowloon Hills has changed to deep purple, and the last crimson flash is lingering against its background of amber light on the steep summits of the Southern mountains. Then the sky is like Heaven and the air like wine, the woods are full of the shout of doves, and the song of the cicada, and if, as large Hesper rises over the sunset, you will just go and sit down on that bridge at the foot of the waterfall, and listen to the silver thread that tinkles down-will sit there and smell the fresh breath of the pines and the homelike odour of the ferns-you will acknowledge if you are not above simple pleasures, that it is "a goodly place, a goodly time."

Still more will you if you will go up to the top of that waterfall, it looks difficult but you can do it, for there you will see all the valley lying beneath you like a map-to the right the Stanley Road runs under the brows of one of the abruptest mountains in the Island, and the woods thicken towards the "Haunted House;" while to the left are the deep blue waters of the Harbor like a sapphire pavement, into which are embossed the yellow hills of Kowloon, so like a model of Southern Greece that they remind one of Ruskin's "Great peacefulness of light" over the Mediterranean, the hawk and the dove seeing it "as they lean upon the South Wind." There too you will see the Canal which was to have borne the commerce of Southern China; the roads, seen as in a plan, growing leafier year by year; the quiet resting places of" them that sleep"-and the race-course.

No! That last juxta-position was not a slip of the pen. I wrote it on purpose. The things are together in fact, together from stern necessity, and they may be together on paper. A great deal of well-meaning nonsense has been and is talked, and will be talked about the "shockingness," "incongruity," and so forth of the close neighbourhood to each other of the two last mentioned institutions. And it is shocking if we are to go on believing that death is

very dreadful and by all means not to be thought of except on Sundays, that out of sight is out of mind, that what cannot be cured must therefore be hid, and that all amusement is wrong and to be carried on by stealth, when serious subjects are as it were not looking.

But if we believe that honest recreation is a thing of which no one need be ashamed, that a truly brave and good man would as soon think of, or meet, Death on a race-course as in a place of worship, and that to put a thing out of sight is not to abolish it, then we shall not find the grassy mounds of the hillside a check upon our laughter, or the white posts of the course an insult to our tears. If, besides, a hint of mortality is so "incongruous" what an offence the tower of an English Church should be to those whose merry-makings fall within sight of it-nay even the chimes and the sound of the Clock are suggestive! The force of squeamishness can no further go! Better far the wholesome strength of stomach of old days, which associated the yew with the good cloth yard shaft, and "God's acre" with the shooting match after sermon to be ready for the King's enemies. I doubt much whether the Egyptians were less mirthful over their wine because of the veiled shape which sat at the board. It is good to be merry and wise.

"Taking their pleasure sadly as their manner is" said Froissart of the nation whose pleasure' has been, more than that of any other European Nation connected with horses. How much laughter "from the teeth outwards," noise, and outside gaiety may yet be required to banish the English tristesse from our sports and pastimes, I, already committed in favor of quiet pleasures, cannot pretend to say. But it does seem that Colonial influences so far modify the said Englishman, that one would hardly say he takes his pleasure sadly on Race-days, except when a cold North-Easter is blowing "and drizzling rain doth fall." When the "fung-shui" is propitious, and the Races can take place "all in the blue unclouded weather," though the woods around are of the soberest hue, and the hills have not yet put on that living green that we see only once a year, yet the enclosure is a parterre of colors, the grass is covered with a happy crowd, even chair-coolies (outside ones) look contented in prospect of an El Dorado of unlimited "pidgin" and obliviousness of legal tariffs, and non-chair-bearing China looks on puzzled, but calmly amused. Serial Tins are the order of the day, ladies back their favourite horses with stakes of x toy in gloves, and the more extravagant sterner sex are seen making up those precious volumes which we call "Race-books," but which on English Courses might much oftener be termed "Legs' Classics."

But on the turf of that enchanted valley may no leg' come! Those spotted snakes with double tongue shall come not near our Fairy Queen, who gives us away the Ladies' Purse, while Philomel with melody is represented by the Band of the onety-oneth, not the least charm of the whole. For it is only in Happy Valleys, if indeed beneath the moon there be other such, that

we can see Horse Races without an excess of horsiness and of "sporting men." We know the owners of the quadrupeds, we know their riders, we are tolerably safe from pick-pockets and unbeguiled by Thimblerig. Altogether is it not, candidly now, better than racing in England?

Ah!-England. "We fret, we fume, would change our skins, would quarrel with our lot"-we long to be there, and to be away from here; nevertheless I do believe (you may endorse it or not as you please) that if in the street of an English town, in one of the old oft-trodden lanes, or out on the lonely moors, there would blow to me a breath,-just one gust-of the dear old familiar fragrance that comes down the valleys when all the patient hillsides are quivering in the heat, the smell of dry grass and dry fern as one has felt it "through many an hour of summer suns, by many pleasant ways" -I do believe that the fountain would run upwards against its current, and that with a half sigh and longing for "wings like a dove" even under English elms, I should again tread the walks I have trode so often, and be back again in spirit on the hills of Hongkong.

HOW I STRUGGLED INTO PRINT.

My earliest recollections are associated with pens, ink, and paper. I believe that I was born in an office, and I have strong reasons for thinking that I must have been cradled in a waste-paper basket. I am certain that I was brought up in the very house wherein the famous Doctor Watts wrote most of his successful Poems, and that would be sufficient to establish my early connection with literature if I could boast of nothing else. But my ancestors have, one and all, placed before the Public some poetic notion or another which required only to be known, only to be read, to meet with universal admiration. My grandfather though born "in forma pauperis," as far as worldly possessions went, was rich in intellect, and before he had attained the age of five and thirty had become a by-word among Literary Men. At forty, he married the daughter of a famous "Wit," and in a short time his lovely bride presented to the world, a handsome Boy. This boy, by the decree of Fate was destined to becomemy Father. Before he attained that enviable distinction however, he, like his ancestors, was called upon to acheive some literary success, in order to attain the prominent position hitherto occupied by them. At the early age of twentyone he wrote a series of Poems, the point of which, I believe, has never yet been made apparent, but as they were published in his own name, and edited by a renowned scholar, they sold remarkably well. Strange to say, a second edition was never called for-the public were apparently satisfied; his intellect had undergone examination, and a favorable verdict had not been pronounced upon it.

People might suppose that he would then have retired into obscurity