smacked our lips over the discovery that Canton offers greater delicacies than rats and canines, and that, after all, its bill of fare may suit the most fastidious taste. Much of this ginger is exported to England and America.

To stroll through the streets day after day, and watch the interesting processes and industries always going on, was a continual source of amusement and instruction. The glassblowers were specially expert in their art, and fashioned ships, trees, and birds, with great dexterity, handling the most fragile articles of glass as though they were made of iron.

The great varieties of porcelain and ceramic ware, and carved ivory and ebony, would repay hours of study. The silks, crapes, and embroideries, were of the most ingenious patterns and deliGoldbeaters, crystal carvers, block and type cutters, lacquer-ware manufacturers, and scores of other employments, kept one's powers of observation exercised continually.

cate texture.

One street was devoted to the sale of incensesticks and sandal-wood; another was lined with coffin-shops. Chinese coffins of peculiar construction were displayed. They were formed of four thick slabs of wood, rounded on the outer surface

and strongly fastened together. They were made airtight, for the bodies are frequently kept a long time before burial, until some "fung-shui," or "lucky spot,” for interment is found. Near the coffin-shop street is a district where the dyeing process is appropriately conducted (!), and beyond this is the street occupied by blacksmith - shops. To go

through this latter street at night was to enter a perfect pandemonium of sights and sounds. Blazing fires and blast-furnaces were in full operation, and red-hot bars of iron emitted a dazzling brightness as they were withdrawn from the glowing furnaces. In the midst of the smoke and showers of sparks were the begrimed bodies of naked Chinamen, shining with perspiration, blackened with soot, and dancing like demons, while they struck scores of blows per minute upon the red-hot bars of iron.

With the exception of this neighborhood, the great city presents at night an appearance of complete silence and solitude, in strange contrast to the busy hum and life of the daytime. No noisy promenading or boisterous behavior is possible, and the burglars have a poor chance in Canton. Soon after sundown, the narrow streets, in the business part of the city, are blockaded by upright bars and

fences placed at intervals of half a square or so, and utterly impassable to the late pedestrian, until he has rapped on the bars and told the Tartar watchman who approaches what his name is and whither he is going; then the functionary slowly opens the gate and allows him to pass. The stillness of the streets at night becomes almost oppressive. A mile may be gone over, at a late hour, without meeting a person, except the lonely watchmen, with their dark lanterns and long sticks; and the benighted and belated traveller is kept waiting at successive gates, until his patience is well nigh exhausted, before the guard comes and permits him His feet echo on the stone pavement, under which the hollow drains are placed. The houses and shops are all closed with tightly-fitting shutters. Here and there a light glimmers through the cracks, and subdued sounds may be heard, either of Chinese voices, or of work that is still going on within. A strip of sky is seen above the irregular line of roofs, and a few stars twinkle overhead. The brick walls and wooden shutters rise up on either hand, and in front of each doorway a taper, or incense-stick, is burning before the household shrine, in which a little image of the god of wealth, or of mercy, sits, and before whom packs of

to pass.

firecrackers have been exploded at sundown, the remains of which still clutter the sidewalk,

These dumb images and burning tapers are the only things to be seen by the wayside, and a stranger would never suppose, while walking these deserted streets at night, that he was in the very heart of the most populous city of the Chinese Empire.

CHAPTER III.

PRISONS, EXECUTIONS, AND EXCURSIONS IN

CHINA.

THE French heroine Madame Roland, when led to the guillotine, exclaimed, "O Liberty! what crimes are committed in thy name!" The sorrowful truth thus expressed finds a fitting counterpart in the groans of the wretched captives, who, waiting in the loathsome prisons of Canton, come forth at last to the torturing ordeal of the mandarin who sits sternly in the "Hall of Justice," and renders it the opposite of all that its name would rightly imply.

The Chinese people designate their prisons as 'Hells," and woe to the poor creatures thrown into them, whether they deserve their fate or not.

I gained access to some of these prisons, and also inspected the torturing tribunal, the execution ground, the place of burial for criminals, and other localities, illustrating the means and ends of such justice as the vicinity of Canton affords. The first place visited was the receiving cell, where prisoners are incarcerated previous to their being brought