streets or alleys
paved with large flags. In a small niche somewhere in the front of
every house, we saw little altars from one to three feet high,
before which, as it was yet early, the night lamps were still
burning. An immense quantity of oil is unnecessarily consumed in
keeping up this religious custom. The shops now began to be opened.
They resemble neat entrance halls, having no front wall. The goods
were exposed for sale either in large open boxes or on tables,
behind which the shopkeepers sit and work. In one corner of the
shop, a narrow staircase leads up into the dwelling-house above.

Here, as in Turkish towns, the same regulation is observed of each
trade or calling having its especial street, so that in one nothing
but crockery and glass, in another silks, and so on, is to be seen.
In the physician's street are situated all the apothecaries' shops
as well, as the two professions are united in one and the same
person. The provisions, which are very tastily arranged, have also
their separate streets. Between the houses are frequently small
temples, not differing the least, however, in style from the
surrounding buildings: the gods, too, merely occupy the ground
floor, the upper stories being inhabited by simple mortals.

The bustle in the streets was astonishing, especially in those set
apart for the sale of provisions. Women and girls of the lower
classes went about making their purchases, just as in Europe. They
were all unveiled, and some of them waddled like geese, in
consequence of their crippled feet, which, as I before observed,
extends to all ranks. The crowd was considerably increased by the
number of porters, with large baskets of provisions on their
shoulders, running along, and praising in a loud voice their stock
in trade, or warning the people to make way for them. At other
times, the whole breadth of the street would be taken up, and the
busy stream of human beings completely stopped by the litter of some
rich or noble personage proceeding to his place of business. But
worse than all were the numerous porters we met at every step we
took, carrying large baskets of unsavoury matter.

It is a well known fact, that there is perhaps no nation on the face
of the earth equal to the Chinese in diligence and industry, or that
profits by, and cultivates, as they do, every available inch of
ground. As, however, they have not much cattle, and consequently
but little manure, they endeavou