CHAPTER VI. THE MISSION TO CHINA. IT is unnecessary here to enter further into the history of the operations in China than is wanted to explain the part which Laurence took in them. He has himself left a history of the mission and all its performances, in a narrative published immediately after its termination. Its importance in modern history was much greater than was even anticipated, seeing that it was not only the beginning of legalised and comprehensible dealings with China, but in some degree the means of discovering, diplomatically, and adding to the variety of Nature, the heretofore half fabulous, yet in reality most intelligent, wide-awake, and progressive, empire of Japan. The position of Laurence was still unofficial. He was not a recognised servant of the Foreign Office or member of the diplomatic service. Probably it was part of the disadvantage of his irregular education, and partly of those independent ways and opinions which had always been characteristic of him, that he never seems to have made any attempt to constitute himself a regular member of this profession which would seem to have been so completely congenial to him. But there was still at that time an accidental character about that service, and chances for the man who was proved capable, which were probably much more attractive to him than the routine of a public functionary. I have been told by one of the other members of the expedition, Sir Henry Loch, then an attaché serving his apprenticeship in the service in which he now occupies so distinguished a position, that the first appearance of Oliphant among the group of young men in attendance upon the Minister was somewhat startling to those gilded youths. He began to talk, as they lounged about the deck with their cigars, of matters spiritual and mystical, singularly different from the themes that usually occupy such groups. They asked each other what strange comrade they had here when they talked over the new addition to their party. It would seem to have been the then quite new development of what, for want of a better name, people call spiritualism, or more vulgarly, spirit-rapping, which was RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS. 197 the subject of the talk about the funnel in the soft tropical night. I find, however, no trace of this in the letters, which give a wonderfully clear view of what Laurence was thinking, and of the point in his religious history to which he had now come-which, as the reader will see, occupied his mind very much even amid all the excitements of the expedition. He would seem, during the interval between this and his former secretaryship in Canada, to have completely burst the strait bonds of his mother's evangelical views, then holding him but lightly-as it seems inevitable that a lively young mind awakening to demand a reason for everything should do: and had now come to something like a tenable foundation for his personal belief-which differed much from that in which he had been trained, yet which he was very anxious to prove to be a most real rule of life. Thus the expedition, which was so brilliant and important, and out of the records of which he made a book so readable, interesting, and amusing, is associated in his private history with the rising of religious thoughts and convictions which ripened in the monotony of the many intervals of waiting which came between the exciting episodes of his life. Nothing can be more curious than to see-between the fighting and the exploring, which he enjoys like a schoolboy, al ways somehow finding himself in the front, always gay, amusing, and amused-the student retired in his cabin, hearing nothing but the monotonous swish of the waves, and pondering the ways of God to man, and especially the mistaken, confusing, and derogatory interpretations given by all human systems of these wonderful ways. Sometimes his own views are very strikingly expressed; but it is not necessary that the reader should agree with him in order to be interested in this curious second side of the versatile, delightful, gay, and adventurous young man, who was ready for everything-the ball-room and the council - chamber and the smoking-room, while still most warmly attracted of all by the book of theology which awaited him all the time in his retirement. His parents would seem to have been established in the neighbourhood of London-I imagine at Spring Grove, a house within reach of his uncle's house at Wimbledon-when he left England; and to his mother it was always like a rending asunder of soul and body to part with him. He sends her a note from the Indus, the steamer in which he had set out to join the mission at Alexandria, hoping that she is not letting herself be miserable. "There are numbers of partings going now," he writes, “and weeping RAILWAYS IN EGYPT. 199 parents going on shore; so you are not alone." At Alexandria, where the new overland route and the railway across the desert had just been put in operation, he does not enter into any details about the place, which was already familiar both to himself and his correspondent, but makes an amusing note on the subject of the train coming in from Cairo, "quite a sight." "There was a harem carriage, and Arabs were clinging like flies to all parts, crowding the roof, and even perched upon the buffers. They jumped off like frogs long before the train stopped. I believe a good many are killed monthly; but they are cheap here, and certainly take kindly to steam locomotion." At Cairo "we go about in grand style, Lord Elgin in a state carriage, with four grey horses, and a whole posse of horsemen and running footmen, who at night carry blazing torches, making the whole procession very picturesque. We follow behind in two other of the Pasha's carriages, accompanied by sundry beys and swells." At Galle, where on their arrival the well-known place brought many recollections to the traveller's mind, they were met by the news of the breaking out of the mutiny in India, which, however, does not seem to have at once disturbed either the secretary or his chief, as after-records announce. The mis |