has its tutelary idol. A
little shrine of bamboo of the size of a common birdcage is built for
it, sometimes fixed and sometimes movable. The interior of this was
gilded once, but the gilt is worn and tarnished by smoke and water. It
has doors that open when the joss-sticks are to be burnt before the toy
figure that presides on a miniature throne. A sampan whose owners are
too poor to supply themselves with decent clothing, will be sure to have
its tawdry baby-house and doll idol, and it frequently has in addition
a roll of paper, four feet by one, like a window curtain, with, a gay
picture of Joss, in a scarlet dress, in the act of dancing, and
generally in a very absurd posture for such a respectable character.

Every evening at sunset there is a prodigious hubbub from the junks on
the Woosung, made with tom-toms, drums, and other unmelodious
instruments, which are vigorously beaten for ten or fifteen minutes, to
bring good luck, and propitiate the devils, or frighten them away for
the night. From the shore, the rapid motions of a dozen arms on the high
poop of each junk, tossed aloft in the dusk, and the discordant, harsh
sounds that come from so many vessels at once, arrest the attention of
the stranger, and once seen and heard, are never forgotten.

The pagodas, so often mentioned in accounts of the Chinese empire,
appear to be more numerous in the mountainous districts, where they add
greatly to the picturesque charm of the scenery, and are believed to be
connected with the religious ceremonies of the people. In the flat
country around Shanghai they are not to be met with; at least it was not
our fortune to see any during our brief stay. The only structure like a
tower, if we except the turrets on the city walls and watch towers
erected within the past few years, when the Tae-Pings have threatened
the city, is a tall, white monument, rising to the height of twenty
feet, and without inscription or distinguishing mark of any kind. It
looks like a fine, white tomb, higher and more ambitious than usual, and
truly it is a 'whited sepulchre'! Baby Tower, it is called by the
foreign residents, for it is filled with the bones of infants--not such
as have died a natural death, as Bayard Taylor asserts, but which have
been thrust into this horrid monument of heathen cruelty when but a few
hours old. Humanity shudders at the thought! These dazzling white baby
towers, with their mockery of purity, their object known to all me