n respect to size, are hideously ugly.
They seem to be simple, primitive people, bent on satisfying their
curiosity; but in the pursuit of this they are, if anything, somewhat
more considerate or more conservative than the Persians.

Mothers hurry home and fetch their babies to see the Fankwae, pointing me
out to their notice, very much like pointing out a chimpanzee in the
Zoological gardens. In these village inns the spirit of democracy
embraces all living things; sore-eyed coolies, leprous hangers-on to the
thread of life, matronly sows and mangy dogs, come, go, and freely mingle
and associate in these filthy little kitchens. When cooking is in
progress, nothing is set off the fire on to the ground but that a hungry
pig stands and eyes it wistfully, but sundry burnings of their sensitive
snouts during the days of their youthful inexperience have made them
preternaturally cautious, so that they are not very meddlesome. The
sleeping room is really a part of the pig-sty, nothing but an open
railing separating pigs and people. A cobble-stone path now leads through
a hilly country, divided up into little rice-fields, peanut gardens, pine
copses, and cemeteries. Peanut stalls one encounters at short intervals,
where ancient dames or wrinkled old men preside over little saucers of
half-roasted nuts, peanut sweet cakes, peanut plain cakes, peanut
crullers, peanut dough, peanut candy, peanuts sprinkled with sugar,
peanuts sprinkled with salt, and peanuts fresh from the ground. The
people seem to be well-nigh living on peanuts, which unhappy diet
probably has something to do with their marvellous ugliness.

In a gathering of villagers standing about me are people with eyes that
are pitched at the most peculiar angles, varying from long, narrow eyes
that slope downward toward the cheek-bone, to others that seem almost
perpendicular. No less astonishing is the contour of their mouths; ragged
holes in their ugly faces are these for the most part, shapeless and
uncouth as anything well could be. They are the most unprepossessing
humans I have seen the whole world round.

As, on the evening of the third day from Chao-choo-foo, we approach
Nam-hung, the people and the country undergo a great change for the
better. The land is more level and better cultivated; villages are
thicker and more populous, and the people are no longer conspicuously
ill-favored. All evidence goes to prove that meagre diet and hard lines
generally, continue