He confirmed
some things that our boys had told us, but we understood them better
from him. He said that the Chinese have such perfect faith in continued
life after death, and in a man's increased power in another life, that
it was not an unusual thing for any one who had some great injury to
avenge, to kill himself, in order to get into a position to do it more
effectually. To them a dead man is more important than a living one; and
the one great feature of their religion is the worship of their
ancestors. They make a great many offerings to them,--as we saw them do
at Lone Mountain. If any one dies at sea, or in a foreign country, where
there is no friend or relative to do this for him, he becomes a beggar
spirit. It is the duty of the Chinese at home to make offerings to
beggar spirits as well as to their own relatives. If any great
misfortune happens to a man, he thinks he must have neglected or
offended some dead relative, or perhaps one of these beggar spirits; and
will impoverish himself for years, to atone for it by a great feast.
They are very much afraid of the spirits, and build their houses with
intricate passages, and put up screens, to keep them from seeing what
happens; and they especially avoid openings north and south, as they
think the spirits move only in north and south lines. What is more
important than almost any thing in a man's life, is to be placed right
after his death,--toward the south, that he may receive genial and
reviving influences from it; but if he is toward the north, and gets
chilling influences from that direction, he wreaks his vengeance on his
living relatives who placed him there.

We learn a good deal from the boys we have. I should like very much to
go into their schools, they are so well taught in many respects. One of
our boys once took some fruit-wax, and modelled a perfect little duck.
He said he was taught at school how to do it. He also drew several
animals with an exceedingly life-like appearance. This early instruction
is no doubt the basis of the acknowledged superiority of the Chinese as
carvers in wood and ivory.

I have often wondered that more of them do not die in coming to a
climate so different from their own, and adopting such new modes of life
as most of them are obliged to do. But they all seem to have been
taught the rudiments of medicine. A young American boy, if he is sick,
has not the remotest idea what to do for himself; but the Chinese boys
know in mo