Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/147

 grunted entire satisfaction with their present condition. The priests care for them very tenderly, for they believe that they contain the imprisoned spirits of some defunct members of their own order. It is to be hoped that when they are once more elevated to the grade of humanity, they will leave behind all their swinish propensities and traits of character.

I arranged with Arr-Kum for an early start the next morning, and he was on hand at nine o'clock, with two sedan chairs, each provided with an extra set of coolies for a hard day's tramp, and we dove into the heart of the great city. I can give but the merest outline of the curious sights of these two days. To describe them all would occupy too much space. The streets are very narrow, scarcely admitting of two chairs passing each other, and all were paved with flat stones and tolerably clean. Each street is devoted to some especial trade, and the din of the vendersvendors [sic] of all sorts of catables was sometimes terrific. The signs were all vertical, and in red or yellow letters. Every shop is open to the street, and all sorts of manufacturing can be seen without entering. My coolies slid along as rapidly as the crowded thoroughfare would permit, and in the two days they must have traveled twenty-five miles, winding, twisting and turning in every direction. I did not meet a European or American anywhere in the city, and was, of course, stared at by the natives wherever I went. A few years ago I should have been hooted at and called a Fankwei, or "foreign devil," but now the salutation was "Taipan" or "Lord," and many with outstretched palms solicited "Kennshaw," or a gratuity of copper cash. In some of the fashionable streets there are large shops filled with elegant silks, gold and silver embroideries, fine porcelain, most expensive furs and rich jewelry. In the silk-weaving quarter they were weaving with hand looms, the beautiful fabrics at the rate of half a yard a day. In the paper joss shops are all sorts of curious decorations for their idols. One street was devoted to "wedding chairs," where these gay and festive vehicles are kept for hire. The cap business occupied a very long street, and the shoe trade another. The flour mills were most primitive, the work all done by hand labor. In the cafes and eating houses were all sorts of tempting viands, among which the brown, crisp roast pig was the most conspicuous. One