Having finished my researches amongst the hills, I left this part of the country and returned to Shanghae. The "Helen Stuart," one of the first vessels which left Shanghae for England direct, was at this time ready for sea, and I availed myself of this opportunity to send some cases of plants to the Horticultural Society, which, I regret to say, arrived in very bad condition. When I had despatched these cases, I determined on another journey into the interior.
Every one who has been in China, or who is at all acquainted with Chinese history, has heard of the city of _Soo-chow-foo_. If a stranger enters a shop in Hong-Kong, in Canton, or in any of the other towns in the south, he is sure to be told, when he inquires the price of any curiosity out of the common way, that it has been brought from this celebrated place; let him order any thing superb, and it must be sent for from Soo-chow--fine pictures, fine carved work, fine silks, and fine ladies, all come from Soo-chow.--It is the Chinaman's earthly paradise, and it would be hard indeed to convince him that it had its equal in any town on earth. In addition to its other attractions, I was informed by the Chinese nursery gardeners at Shanghae that it contained a great number of excellent flower gardens and nurseries, from which they obtained all or nearly all the plants which they had for sale, and I was, therefore, strongly tempted to infringe the absurd laws of the Celestial Empire, and try to reach this far-famed place. My greatest difficulty was to meet with boatmen who would travel with me, as they were all frightened for the mandarins, who had issued very stringent orders to them after the circumstance happened which I have already noticed. They were told, that they might take foreigners down the river towards the sea, and up as far as a pagoda a mile or two above Shanghae, but on no account were they to go up the western branch of the river. This was a direct infringement on the right which had been secured to us by the treaty of Nanking, and her Majesty's consul at this port soon found it necessary and prudent to interfere in the matter. Some time after this period, when what are called the boundaries were fixed, the foreign residents were allowed to go a day's journey into the interior, that is, as far as they could go and come back again in twenty-four hours.