Here I am in Chainy, and its rather hominous that, after all your
jellessy of Nancy, I should have been brought to Chuse-Ann; but that's
nayther here nor their, for I've only my duty to my kernel, which lays
in a nutshel. If I'd a been one of the unattached, it would not have
signeyfied, but the War Office is nothing but stone, as anybody may see,
who looks at it with half a high, and the Horse Guards is, by natur, as
illumered as the illumernatured clock at the top of it. But never mind;
though Guvament sends my legs on a march that lasts from Jannivary to
Deesember, my art can stay in the deepot of your affexions. Yes, there,
without the aid o' barracks, it is reglarly barrackaded. But I spose
you'd like me to tell yer something about Chainy and the Chainees. Well,
yew no the plates called the villa pattern, with three fellers on a
bridge, looking as if they vus a goin fishin—the vun vith a boatook,
tother vith a deal board, and the thurd vith a cricket ball tied to the
hend uv a walkin stik. Nou, I dare say yew think that's a korrect drawin
of Chainees men and manner; but, spoonies as they are, I never seed 'em
makin such preshious hasses of themselves, as they are in all the plates
yure muther has of 'em. Then the tree with the horanges, is only to puff
off the real Chainy, as they sells for two a penny in the streets;
bekause if they vus only half as big as the hartist has made 'em they'd
be whoppers indeed, and the Chainees karacter is rayther the other way;
for they're always whopt themselves, instead of being whoppers.
Ven I new I vus a goin to Chainy, I took a number of Chambers; I don't
meen that I highered a sweet of rooms, but I bort the Hinformation for
the Peeple, treatin (as they calls it, though one has to pay for the
treat) of Chainy. Akordin to the book, I find that the natives call
Chainy the middle country, and it really is among the middlins, for
everything about it is werry indifferent. The Great Wall runs so far
that one can't say where it goes to, vich is exakly the way with the
troops, though it's ony in the long run that they are anything like the
wall, for they don't behave at all like bricks in any other partickler.
A good deal has been said about the sighs of the Grate Wall of Chainy,
and won says won thing, and won another; so that I've come to the
konklusion that it's just as broad as it's long, and that settles it.
One side of the place is bounded by the Pacific; and I spose it's
bathing in the Pacific that makes the natives fight so preshusly shy of
fightin. I hunderstand the hurth used to be a good deal given to
hurthquaking; but the ground has given up that game, and the quakin
bisness is now dun by the military, who are no great shakes after all,
xsept in that rispect.
The natives say that Chainy is older than the deluge, but this must be a
delugion. At hall events it's not much like a place of the furst vater.
I think they make a mistake about the time when the flood happened, for
they were overrun by a tremendous great Khan, who plunged them into hot
water, and poured the cream of the Tartar troops all over them. This
made such a heffervescence as never was; and as all the provinces was
swamped, it's like enuff they mistook the bursting out of this great
Khan for the reglar deluge.
The Hemperor is called the Brother of the Moon; and I shouldn't wunder
if he's related in sum way, for I think he's crack'd, which is a common
thing enuff in Chainy. They say he's the father of his peeple, and the
mother two but I don't see how they make both of 'em aparent. The
Guvament robs the natives vith vun hand, and pitches into 'em vith the
other; so that betwixt being bamboozled and bambooed, they get a nice
time of it. They used to be werry klever in science, but they're losing
their hearts like winking; and though they don't paint particklarly good
picters, they're great dabs at colours. Indeed, dying is the only thing
they seems to excel in, as the returns of their killed will prove, to
anybody's satisfakshun. As to ourselves, I've very little noose—hardly
enuff to hang a line upon. Of korse you hurd of the affair at the Bogue,
and the pretty Tilt we had with 'em! but it was such a farce, that I
thought of sending the report to Messrs. _Tilt_ and _Bogue_, for their
Comic Allmyknack. The knavy of the poor fellers is quite stationary,
which means to say that it's little better than brown paper; and as to
their artillery, I don't believe their gunpowder would be strong enuff
to shake the nerves of an old washerwoman. The soldiers all of 'em ware
tails, and seem to be wery proud on 'em, for they always turn 'em to us
direktly they cum into akshun. Poor Lin, who was to be the grate card,
has turned out anything but a trump; and I shouldn't wonder if he gets
cut at last by a chop from the Hemperor. The Chainees are werry proud of
their feet, which I don't wunder at, considerin that, in battle, they
owe so much to 'em. The wumen's shoes are so small that it hinterferes
with rithmetic, and makes a foot only three or four inches. It only
shows how cramped they are in their hunderstandings. I've urd it said
that, sum day or anuther, the Chainees will adopt our abbits. Only fancy
the Hemperor in a coat down to his eels, and knee britches, vitch, they
say, will ewentually be the long and the short of it. As to our
fashonable kustoms, they'd easy enuff fall into them, for I've seen 'em
dance at a ball in the most natral manner.
But I must konklude; for a Chainee regiment of 600 is cummin on, and I'm
ordered to relieve guard, with my six men, a quarter of an hour before
the time, so as to kill two burds with wun stone, by changing the
sentries and frightnin away the henemy.—Your dewoted