______________________________________________________________________________________________

24 Apr 60 Peter Hong Kong Mother 5. Hyde Park Place West ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong. 24 April 1860

My dear Mother

I feel rather jovial today. I don’t know why; perhaps because it is a cool, pleasant day after the fearfully hot weather we have had; perhaps because it is rather a light mail & I am able to write this in business hours; or perhaps even (which is by the bye a horrid idea) because I have just had a very nice refreshing glass of beer.

I know you will think me a lost character, but I can’t help it. It may, by the bye, be because I was very unwell yesterday (& sat down & wrote a letter to my Father saying I was coming home at the expiration of my three years, which I cancelled today) & because the reaction has set in today.

I was unwell yesterday I am afraid in consequence of my energetic pursuit on the previous day after butterflies under a vertical sun. People tell me I shall kill myself & I am afraid I shall get knocked down by the sun some day, but I can’t help it. Whenever I take a thing in hand I always pursue it with vigour & the more my collection of butterflies increases, the more zealous am I in the pursuit.

I am getting a famous collection & they certainly are beautiful. I hope you have attended to the pins. I require not tens nor hundreds but thousands. When I go out in the sun I wear a hat made of pith comme cela:

& I generally have a terrific crowd of Chinamen around me gazing with their eyes wide open at the barbarian engaged in the strange sport of catching butterflies. They doubtless look upon me as daft but I don’t care for that & they can’t make out why the butterflies die instanter when I pour a little water out of a small bottle concealed in my waistcoat pocket upon them.

The water in question has a peculiarly strong smell & is in fact chloroform. Willie will envy me indeed. I can catch a better collection of butterflies in one day than all his put together – only of course I haven’t time to pursue it thoroughly.

Troops arrive every day but we don’t seem to get any further. I don’t know what becomes of them all but I believe they are all encamping on the main land opposite.

Tell Mary, whom I am debarred from writing to, that Gladwin Jebb, Maida Jebb’s brother is here, but I have not yet seen him. We were at Rugby together after I knew him previously. I do not think there is anybody else that I know or half know in the place. It is getting fearfully hot now. Only today is cool, there being a strong breeze blowing,.

We expect that Mr Adams will be made Judge – he has been acting Judge ever since he has been here. I have not been there as often of late as I got rather tired of them. Miss A. making herself a great deal too cheap which I didn’t like. Mr A. I like very much but he encourages it too much, besides which I am always afraid of his insisting upon my stopping to dinner which I decidedly object to inasmuch as he has a peculiarity of asking people to dinner to starve them. This is decidedly unpleasant.

Enclosed you will find a ‘Kobang’, a Japanese gold coin regarding which all the noise has been. It will make an addition to the collection on your watch chain.

I called my Japan Pony after these coins because he was of inestimable value. These gold coins were originally, on our first intercourse with the Japanese, to be bought for half their value from the Imperial Treasury. It was the exorbitant demands consequently sent in for them which brought in the row. People seem to think that there will be a revolution in the island in consequence of the admission of foreigners & that they will all be murdered. So great is the prejudice against us amongst the nobility who, when the country was poor, had every thing their own way, but now begin to find the difference which money makes.

I shall send the mermaid by the first opportunity. If you know any great naturalist who is anxious to add a specimen to his collection, I shall be happy to take a sum of not less than 1,000 guineas for it to arrive – of course guarantee nothing, but there can, I think, be no doubt as to its genuineness.

Don’t forget the pins & give little Helen her usual salute, from her affect. Brother

Peter G. Laurie

Please send me by post ‘12 years in China’ by John Scarth.* Don’t forget this as I know him out here.

* John Scarth – John Scarth, an English merchant, wrote about Chinese customs and characteristics, including the problem of collective violence, when he sailed along the Han River in the late 1850s