BY midday of the 6th we were ready to leave Tien-tsin, and having collected all our travelling equipment at a merchant's house in the main street, and stowed it carefully away into the cart, with our ponies ready to be mounted, we only awaited the somewhat doubtful arrival of the Canton interpreter. But hour after hour passed away, and still he made no appearance, neither could his whereabouts be discovered, until it was sufficiently obvious that he had shirked the task, broken the contract, and hid himself; so, chagrined at having delayed so long on his account, we adopted the only course left open, which was to take M——'s servant, who, though he might be no scholar and could scarcely make himself understood, would prove better than no interpreter at all. Accordingly, the youth was sent for; a suspicious interval of time elapsed, and after spending another impatient period, an old comprador of the house, a Chinese of business habits, but slow speech, approached us in deliberate strides, and, with an expression of countenance worthy of faithful old Caleb Balderston when he communicated the woful destruction of the dinner to the Laird of Ravenswood announced that ‘that piecey boy have whilo,’ and he couldn't ‘savey’ where he had gone. Diligent search was made, but in vain, for the artful vagabond had removed his goods and chattels to some other establishment, given his master a Gallic good-bye, and sallied out to travel on his own account.