f the worst of all
sorts--the creeping Para grass {186}--which was introduced a
generation since, with some trouble, as food for cattle, and was
supposed at first to be so great a boon that the gentleman who
brought it in received public thanks and a valuable testimonial.
The Chinaman will take the land for a single year, at a rent, I
believe, as high as a pound an acre, grow on it his sweet potato
crop, and return it to the owner, cleared, for the time being, of
every weed. The richer shopkeepers have each a store: but they
disdain to live at it. Near by each you see a comfortable low
house, with verandahs, green jalousies, and often pretty flowers in
pots; and catch glimpses inside of papered walls, prints, and smart
moderator-lamps, which seem to be fashionable among the Celestials.
But for one fashion of theirs, I confess, I was not prepared.

We went to church--a large, airy, clean, wooden one--which ought to
have had a verandah round to keep off the intolerable sunlight, and
which might, too, have had another pulpit. For in getting up to
preach in a sort of pill-box on a long stalk, I found the said stalk
surging and nodding so under my weight, that I had to assume an
attitude of most dignified repose, and to beware of 'beating the
drum ecclesiastic,' or 'clanging the Bible to shreds,' for fear of
toppling into the pews of the very smart, and really very attentive,
brown ladies below. A crowded congregation it was, clean, gay,
respectable and respectful, and spoke well both for the people and
for their clergyman. But--happily not till the end of the sermon--I
became aware, just in front of me, of a row of smartest Paris
bonnets, net-lace shawls, brocades, and satins, fit for duchesses;
and as the centre of each blaze of finery--'offam non faciem,' as
old Ammianus Marcellinus has it--the unmistakable visage of a
Chinese woman. Whether they understood one word; what they thought
of it all; whether they were there for any purpose save to see and
be seen, were questions to which I tried in vain, after service, to
get an answer. All that could be told was, that the richer Chinese
take delight in thus bedizening their wives on high days and
holidays; not with tawdry cheap finery, but with things really
expensive, and worth what they cost, especially the silks and
brocades; and then in sending them, whether for fashion or for
loyalty's sake, to an English church. Be that as