Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/42

 38 Ling-Nam.

erected at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, and is now receiving an addition that will almost double the original size.

Entering the city through the Oil Gate, we pass tubs of live fish offered for sale, and are borne through the tin- ware street, past the shops where ivory and sandal-wood carvers are busily engaged with their little knives, chisels, and files turning out articles that find their way to every land, until we come to the French cathedral. Occupying a most desirable location, on the site of the official residence of the famous Viceroy Ye, with several acres of ground enclosed, it excites the envy, and not unfre- quently the open hostility, of the populace. The ground was obtained in restitution for property destroyed in the ° interior many years ago, but the people believe it to have been wrested unjustly from the Government, The cathedral itself is a fine Gothic structure, built of granite, and will compare favourably in size and proportions with many of the renowned churches of Europe. It rises above, every other building in the city, its tower spires showing conspicuously for many a league. It is not simply the spirit of arrogance which they trace in so lofty a structure, but the omen of ill luck which their theory of geomancy shows it to be, that leads them to yegard it with the greatest disfavour, and has made it necessary to station guards of soldiers for months at a time to protect it.

Leaving this finest piece of architecture in the south of China, our course leads us through the streets of the rich jade-stone shops, where various ornaments in every shade of green are displayed in the greatest profusion,