"gingerly" as if it were an egg, and looks as
regretfully at a broken leaf as if it were an
infant's broken arm. From the Loddon garden,
the labourers have to walk five miles to the
nearest market, which distance they perform at
their usual slinging trot. The salesmen bring
their baskets home full of manure. In addition
to the usual manure, they buy guano and bone-
dust.

In the earlier days, Chinamen were wholly
dependent on the European storekeepers for
their supplies. Now every camp has one
or two stores, the property of a Gee-Long,
or Ah-Luck, or Mong-Feng. But they remain
good customers to the Europeans, as they
greatly affect European manners, customs, and
dress, after they have been a short time in
the colony. Not unfrequently they patronise
theatres, concerts, or other amusements, and
put in a splendid appearance at any procession
or public demonstration. When the governors,
for instance, have at different times visited the
up-country towns, their Chinese subjects have
always been most anxious to do full honour to
the representative of royalty. They
mustered in swarms, and brought with them
splendid specimens of banners, flags, and
decorations, which quite cast into shade the
paltry attempts in the same line of European
holiday-makers. The flags are not only far
prettier in shape, but are of beautiful material,
being of the richest silks, of various colours,
so exquisitely contrasted or so delicately
blended, as to please the artistic eye, and
covered with embroidery of most elaborate
character and workmanship. They let off a most
liberal supply of crackers—an amusement they
delight in—and deny themselves no opportunity
of enjoying. They also, at intervals, favour the
lieges with Celestial music, which, certainly,
does not incline any of our colonial enthusiasts
to ask for that "strain again." The instruments
of music consist of reeds, arranged
something like a primitive Pan's pipe, cymbals, and a
tiny kettle-drum. On all these occasions, the
Chinese have with good taste given up their
European dress, and appeared as glorious as they
could make themselves in their national costume:
thus adding materially to the picturesque effect of
the procession, and distinctively showing their
numbers.

After their emigration to Victoria had con-
tinued for some years, the Chinese became
tired of "all work and no play," and
accordingly a company of dramatic performers
arrived from the Flowery Land. Of course,
as they were travelling from one camp to
another, or rather from one English town to
another, round which Chinamen had set up their
clusters of tabernacles, they had no permanent
place of performance, but conveyed their stage,
properties, and theatre (in the shape of a large
circular tent) from place to place. The dresses,
and some of the other properties, with great
display of jewellery, are really splendid; but they
almost wholly dispense with scenery. They
delight in feats of strength, and indulge in
dangerous acrobatic exhibitions to a most alarming
extent. They never repeat the same piece, for
they appear to have an inexhaustible supply of
dramas. It would be impossible for one who is
but slightly acquainted with their language to
discuss the merits of the actors, but if one may
judge by the earnest enthusiasm of the audience,
they must be excellent. On one occasion I had the
benefit of an interpreter's version of the tragedy
before me. It was made up of pretty equal
parts of love, jealousy, revenge, and murder,
and seemed thoroughly to rivet the attention
and enlist the sympathies of the audience. An
emperor made his appearance in the course of
the piece; and the slow and dignified, yet
imperious, way in which he lived and moved, and
gave his orders, was a perfect illustration of
what one could imagine to be the manners of
an Oriental autocrat—half barbarous, half
refined. The female characters were acted by
boys. One, the young lady, Kat-si-sieno, who
is deserted by her recreant lover, and who
eventually hangs herself, was so intensely
pathetic, that she (or he) wept, and the
real distress infected the beholders. The
performances are varied, and accompanied, as in
our own theatres, by music; but the beating of
the tom-toms, and the shrill sounds of the pipes
and triangles, became such an intolerable
nuisance to Europeans, that it was found necessary
to forbid the musical portions of the
entertainment after twelve o'clock at night. The
other parts of the performance were usually
carried on until one, two, or three o'clock in the
morning.

In one or two of the up-country towns, several
of the more adventurous Chinamen rented some
old wooden houses in the worst part of the
towns. Gradually the number of these
increased until a "Chinese Quarter" was formed.
Reasons over and above their peculiar smell,
rendered these Chinamen anything but desirable
neighbours; and in Castlemaine a local
capitalist erected a brick cantonment, away from
the other houses. This little place is a perfect
town in miniature. It occupies about two acres
of ground, has three or four streets, an arcade,
and apparently any number of millions of
inhabitants. There are a large number of stores,
several restaurants, and one or two opium
saloons. The owners of all these establishments
are quite willing to let any person go
over them, and indeed seem to take a pleasure
in showing their wares, and explaining
Chinese ways of management. Few of their
dwellings have chimneys; but they are warmed
with buckets of live charcoal. The excessive
neatness of the arrangement of the stores,
houses, and of their own dress, would lead one
to suppose these Chinamen the cleanest people
in the world, but they are terribly dirty in
some respects. Were it not for the enforcement
of some sanitary by-laws by the Europeans
amongst whom they reside, their quarters would
speedily become the hotbed of the "pestilence
that walketh in darkness."

In this cantonment there is a tin-smith's shop,