. Within an enclosure
were a number of sacred hogs, wallowing in filth like any other swine.
Some lively Chinese boys mounted the largest of these, and extracting a
few of the "sacred" bristles offered them to us for pennies. Upon our
inquiring as to the final disposition of these animals, our guide,
himself a remarkably dignified native, with "millions" of self-conceit,
admitted that the fattest of the lot would probably be eaten in due
season. We shall often have occasion, in these notes, to see how low
poor humanity in its blindness can descend, groveling after strange
gods. When trying to analyze the frame of mind which probably actuated
these people in making sacred objects of swine, the thought suggested
itself that after all it might be an instinctive groping of ignorance
after light and truth. Crude, and even disgusting as it appears to an
intelligent Christian, it has its palliating features. The Parsee
worships fire, the Japanese bows before foxes and snakes, the Hindu
deifies cows and monkeys. Why should not the Chinese have their swine as
objects of veneration? There are certain forms of what is called
Christian worship which are by no means above comparison with even
Chinese extravagance.

Within the walls of this Temple of Honan was a spacious and curious
garden, where the dwarf trees and flowering shrubs were ingeniously
trimmed to make them grow in the forms of various animals; and here was
a large pond of the sacred lotus in bloom, the thin, soft, white velvety
leaves displaying every line and vein in their formation. The fragrance
was very delicate. In the poetical language of the East the lotus is
called the "goddess" as we call the rose the "queen" of flowers. We were
here shown the cremating ovens in which the bodies of the departed
priests are disposed of, and also the crude cells and the large
refectory of the order. But somehow these priests, who pretend to lead
such lives of self-denial, are wonderfully round and unctuous in
personal appearance. Our visit to the Temple of Honan was a very curious
and not uninteresting experience, made up of a strange conglomerate of
swine, priests, fat idols, flower gardens, human roasting ovens, and
pond lilies.

All over Canton may be seen lofty towers, square in form, which dominate
the town. Our guide called these warehouses, or storehouses for the safe
keeping of goods, they being both fire-proof and thief-proof. But
further inquiry proved them to be a se