informed me, "This rich house. Number one
fellow play here— mandarin chap." And truly
I saw in the room goodly piles of dollars
heaped up before a better-dressed assembly.
The game appeared to be the same, and money
changed hands rapidly. I "chin-chinned" to
the banker and to the company, and was civilly
allowed to look on. The room led through a
filigreed doorway to another apartment, where
cakes, loaves, tea, and pipes, were spread out,
and where long-tailed gentlemen were lounging
and discussing the news of the day.

Being in want of cash, and having only dollar
notes with me, I asked my guide what I should
do? He straightway led me to a money-changer's,
where I was at once furnished with
change for my notes, at par. As this was an
unusual accommodation, I asked the reason of
such generosity, and was informed that the
dollars given me were all light, and that the
changer would obtain full weight dollars for the
notes by-and-by. I was assured, however, that
in all the shops the dollars I had received would
be received at the full value; and this I found
to be the case. All the time I was in the
money-changer's, I saw three or four people telling,
examining, and stamping dollars. So defaced
and mutilated does the coin become by bearing
the "chop" or mark of every banker or dealer
into whose possession it passes, that it as nearly
as possible returns to that state of bullion which
the Chinaman prefers to minted coin. As it was,
the only small change I could procure for a dollar
was in fragments of silver: in the weighing out
of which I was of course at the mercy of the
shopman.

A chair having been with great difficulty
procured for me, and another for my guide, we
were about emerging from the bazaar, when I
had the honour of meeting a mandarin and suite.
My bearers had just time to squeeze into the
entrance of a side-alley, when the cavalcade
was down upon us. Funny looking soldiers,
with spears and muskets indiscriminately,
musicians and drummers or tom-tom beaters, and an
amazing figure in red and gold apparel of a
loose flapping cut, with a sword in his hand,
mounted upon an inexcusable pony— a Chinese
Rosinante. In the centre of this cortége the
mandarin was borne along, a placid fat dignitary,
in a richly embroidered purple velvet and
golden dress, seated in a gaudy sedan.

It was a great relief to emerge from the
crowded bazaar, pass through the gateway in
the massive city wall, and proceed through
comparatively airy lanes to one or two Chinese
gentlemen's houses and gardens, which my
guide most unceremoniously entered, marshalling
me in without a word of introduction or
apology, and making me feel rather ashamed
of myself. These dwellings, as well as the
joss-houses or temples, have been so often described,
that I will not inflict them again on the reader.
Not the slightest objection was raised by the
priests to my exploring every part of the
temples, the vergers showing the altars, the
various images, the cloisters, and refectories,
with great alacrity, and extending their hands
afterwards for a fee. The only undescribed fact
connected with these worthies, which I was
informed of, is, that they sell their finger-nails to
any foreigner desirous of purchasing such
curiosities. These nails are suffered to grow uncut,
and attain a length of three or four inches,
looking remarkably unlike finger-nails, and
forming curiosities much coveted, said my
guide, by foreign gentlemen and "cappens."
Among other religious edifices, I visited a
Mahomedan temple, a singular jumble of Islamism
and Buddhism. Extracts from the Koran
wore an odd appearance emblazoned on Chinese
architecture. There were no priests visible here;
only children and begging old women.

Want of time prevented my visiting the
camp or barracks of the Chinese soldiers,
on the heights outside the eastern suburbs of
the town. A large garden, attached to a temple
on the Honan side, was the only other object I
had time that day to inspect. The garden was
principally stocked with orange-trees, also loquats
and lychees, hundreds of which were on sale for
the benefit of the good fathers, who are supported
by the produce of the garden and the contributions
of the piously disposed. On each side of
the centre walk, beyond a little dirty pond,
was a shed, with shelves, on which were
ranged pots containing the ashes of the priests
("priests' bones," my guide irreverently called
them); their bodies, after decease, undergoing
incremation in an adjoining pit. Names, ages,
and dates of decease are duly preserved, cut into
slabs of stone on the concave face of a
semi-circular screen of masonry in the garden.
Before leaving the garden! was not a little
surprised by the appearance of a veritable
magpie, identical, as it seemed to me, with our
British bird, that I had not seen for many
years.

After guiding me safely to my quarters— for
so labyrinthine is every part of Canton and
Honan, that it would be hopeless to attempt to
find one's way alone— my pilot left me and
departed to his own home, which was, he told me,
on the Canton side. The language he spoke is,
as may be gathered from the specimens here
given, not the ordinary "pigeon English" of
Chinese servants: a style of gibberish which it
is lamentable to think has become the ordinary
channel of communication with all Chinamen.
These sharp and intelligent people would soon
learn to speak and understand better English
than such sentences as, "You go top-side
and catchee one piecee book"— "You tell those
two piecee cooly go chowchow, and come back
chopchop." (Go up-stairs and fetch a book—
Tell those two coolies to go to their dinner, and
return quickly). The good effects of the tuition
afforded by schoolmasters and missionaries in
China are much marred by the jargon used
conventionally, with irrational adherence to defect
in all ordinary transactions of business, by
masters and mistresses in intercourse with their
servants, and by commercial men with their
native assistants.