The chickens are hatched, as they are in Egypt, by artificial heat.
On our return from the village to the pagoda, we saw two schampans run in shore, and a number of swarthy, half-naked, and mostly armed men jump out, and hasten through the fields of rice directly to where we were.

We set them down as pirates, and awaited the upshot with a considerable degree of uneasiness.

We knew that, if we were right in our supposition, we were lost without hope; for, at the distance we were from Canton, and entirely surrounded by Chinese, who would have been but too ready to lend them assistance, it would have been doubly easy for pirates to dispatch us.

All idea of escape or rescue was out of the question.
While these thoughts were flashing across our minds, the men kept approaching us, and at length their leader introduced himself as the captain of a Siamese man-of-war.

He informed us, in broken English, that he had not long arrived with the Governor of Bangkok, who was proceeding for the rest of the way to Pekin by land.