Page:Inside Canton.djvu/15

14 colts in the high grass. The sails having been hoisted, the vessel seemed to be left to the care of Heaven. A single sailor remained at the rudder; the others went away to take or prepare their meals. Soon at the stern of the vessel columns of steam were seen to rise from the boiling saucepans, in which rice was being cooked, while the most hungry of the crew eat the grains which had already become swollen out by the moist heat, accompanied by dried fish. The passengers walked about, and smoked the detestable tobacco of the Celestial Empire, or they collected in groups, and devoted themselves with phrensy to the fetal passion of gambling. The Chinese, for the most part, are born with a taste either for gambling or gastronomy. They never lose a chance of having a feast. Marriages, births, and burials are all so many pretexts for a banquet. It is the same thing with gambling; a Chinaman plays with dice, with cards, and with his fingers, and, in his eyes, every subject is a subject for betting. Our companions, by way of dramatising the ordinary chances of play, intrusted the defence of their money to some unfortunate fowls, who, in order to satisfy the passions of their masters, engaged in a most desperate combat. In general, all the gallinacious race have warlike instincts, and the Chinese have profited by this martial inclination to teach quails how to kill one another. These birds are much smaller in China