f their small change. A moment later we met the
funeral cortege of a rich merchant. First came wailers and then men
beating on drums; then sons of the deceased dressed in white (white
is their emblem of mourning); then the servants carrying the body on
their shoulders. More wailers followed, then came the wives. It made
a strange impression.

The streets are so very narrow that we had to press our bodies close
against the wall to keep from being crushed as the procession passed
us. We heard the tooting of a horn. Our guide said, "Here comes the
Mandarin." We began to press ourselves into a niche in the wall
to watch him pass. First came the buglers, then the soldiers and
last the gayly-bedecked Mandarin carried in a sedan chair on the
shoulders of six coolies. He looked the very picture of the severe
authority that he is invested with. They say that he has witnessed
in one day the execution of five hundred criminals. He was obliged
to put a mark on each one's head with his own fingers, and, after
the head was severed from the body, to remark it in proof of the
exactness of his work. I was glad when I had seen the last of him,
though it is only to go from bad to worse.

In the opium dens, hundreds of people, of both sexes, of various ages,
kinds and colors, were reclining in most horrible attitudes. One
glimpse was enough for me.

From this place we entered the temple. One of our guides said he was
obliged to buy joss-sticks and kneel before the gods or it would make
us trouble, because they are watchful of what foreigners do. They
consider us white devils. We saw a war god nine feet high mounted on
a war steed one foot high, a child's woolly toy. There were placed
before the gods about six or eight cups of tea and hundreds of fragrant
burning tapers.

At one point our hearts failed us. We came to a dark bridge; it looked
so forbidding with its various windings, so frail in structure, so
thronged, that we were timid about stepping upon it. Being assured
that it was safe we ventured across. While it shook under our weight,
we did not fall into the filthy frog-pond beneath.

When we reached the center, there were a number of sleight-of-hand
performers who were doing all sorts of curious things; bringing out of
the stone pavement living animals, bottles of wine, bits of porcelain,
and cakes, too filthy looking even to touch.

There were for sale numbers of beautiful birds in cages and wonderful
bits of art of most i