Page:Inside Canton.djvu/81

80 us, these sweets, strongly aromatised, we could find no expressions strong enough to describe how exquisite their flavour appeared. These said cakes of short paste were really good, very good—Julien, by the way, makes better.

I have said the inscription traced upon the cover ran thus:—"Prepared in my house of mourning." This is a Chinese custom. Pan was then in mourning, and was bound, according to the usages of his country, to state, under all circumstances, the loss which had overtaken him. It is thus that, even in Paris, I have eaten at Callery's some preserves of which our Mandarin had made him a present, and which also bore the obligatory inscription,—"Preserves made in 1846, in my house of mourning."

The Chinese, initiated by the English in European manners, believe that all Western nations indulge in pass wine. Our good friend Pan, therefore, true to the laws of hospitality, determined on practising with us this good Britannic custom. He had a bottle of excellent Château-Margaux brought up, and, after a servant had carefully filled our glasses, our amiable Mandarin, like a man worthy of living in Aquitania, took the crystal vase, and, placing it between his eye and the light, to admire the diaphanous spirits playing about in the liquid garnet, said to Callery:—

"Of all European drinks, this is that which I