soil, and others, squatted
on their haunches, were weeding. They looked up and wished us "Good
evening" as we passed along. Near the creek, which bounded one end of
the ground, a John was hauling up water from the well; I took a turn
at the windlass, and must confess that I found the work very hard.

The young vegetables are reared with the greatest care, and each plant
is sedulously watched and attended to. Here is a John, down on his
haunches, with a pot of white mixture and a home-manufactured brush,
painting over the tender leaves of some young cabbages, to save them
from blight. He has to go through some hundreds of them in this way.
Making our way into one of the larger huts, we stroll into the open
door, and ask a more important-looking man if he has any water-melon?
We get a splendid one for "four-pin," and have a delicious "_gouter_."
Our host--a little, dry, withered-up fellow, dressed in a soiled blue
cotton jacket, and wide trowsers which flap about his ankles--collects
the rind for his fowls. The hard-beaten ground is the only flooring of
the hut, and the roof is simply of bark.

In one of the corners of the cabin was a most peculiar-looking affair,
very like a Punch and Judy show. On the proscenium, as it were, large
Chinese letters were painted. Inside was an image or idol (the joss),
carved in wood, with gorgeous gilded paper stuck all round him. A
small crowd of diminutive Chinamen knelt before him, doing homage. On
the ledge before the little stage was a glass of _porter_ for the idol
to drink, and some rice and fruit to satisfy his appetite. Numerous
Chinese candles, like our wax tapers, were put up all round inside,
and the show, when lit up, must have looked very curious.

The Chinamen are always pleased at any notice taken of their houses,
so we penetrated a little further into the dwelling. In one little
room we found a young fellow reading a Chinese book with English words
opposite the characters. It seemed a sort of primer or word-book. My
friend having asked the Chinaman to give us some music on an
instrument hanging above him, which looked something like our banjo,
he proceeded to give us some celestial melodies. The tunes were not
bad, being in quick time, not unlike an Irish jig, but the chords were
most strange. He next played a tune on the Chinese fiddle, very thin
and squeaky. The fiddle consists of a long, straight piece of wood,
with a cross-piece fixed on to the end of it. Two string