arette. We bought from him
some joss-sticks as a peace offering, at double prices, and in a grand
manner he bowed us out.

I had asked the guide to draw it mild in his exhibitions, and to omit
all places, so to speak, off color. This he did. We saw a few
restaurants, and a Chinese drug store, where we purchased some strange
medicines which looked more _outre_ and picturesque in their material,
than in any promise of possible effectiveness in their use. Among these
was a dried toad neatly spread out upon wooden splints. This, we were
assured, if boiled into a soup, was an infallible remedy for leanness.
Soup we knew was said to be fattening, but he who would drink such a
concoction as this dried skin would promise, must be deeply enamored of
obesity.

We also saw an opium den. This was horrible enough; but the smoker on
exhibition was not so horrible to me as the still, silent figures,
stowed away on bunks, in the loathsome darkness of the place. The
"John," who was conveniently placed in a lighted place near the
entrance, lay prone on the hard boards of his cubicle, bent flat on his
side like the letter w, clutching his long, villanous-looking pipe in
his hands. Near him was a cat, which we were assured also had
contracted "the habit;" not that it too hit the pipe, but that it
rejoiced in the heavy atmosphere. The impassive smoker, however, burst
into a fit of most intense and humorous laughter, when one of us made
an attempt to pronounce some Chinese phrase which he was repeating for
us. "Now," said our guide, "he is going to take the long draw." By this
time the bit of opium was cooked sufficiently at the cocoanut-oil lamp,
and with cheeks distended and eyes closed he sucked in the smoke, and
exhaled it in a few moments in a large cloud. I had a lighted cigar in
my own hands, and I could not but think that two kindred vices here
confronted each other face to face, and my conscience was a bit
disturbed; but at once reassurance came to me in a sweet female voice,
for one of our ladies said, "Oh, do smoke your cigar; the odor of it is
so refreshing in this dreadful place." All over the bunks and floor
were crawling black insects, large and small. The guide seeing me
shrinking from them said, "Never mind them, they never leave here." By
this time we were glad to depart and get into the purer air of the
moonlit night.

We walked back to our hotel, passing by balconies lit with Chinese
lanterns, restaurants aglow with l