Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/145

 HOVELS. 79

existing, most of them, nobody knew how. Some of the hovels in which they dwelt would not have made decent dog-kennels; and yet, amid all their poverty, they seemed a tolerably con- tented lot. I remember one hut which had been pieced to- gether out of the fragments of an old boat, bits of foreign packing-cases inscribed with trade-marks that betrayed their chequered history, patches of decayed matting, clay, mud and straw; a covering of odd tiles and broken pottery made all snug within. In the small space thus enclosed, accommodation was found for a lean pig that lived on garbage, two old women, one old man, the old man's daughter and the daughter's child. A small space in front was arranged as the kitchen, while part of the roof and one or two pots were taken up with vegetables or flowers. I have seen the inmates, in the morning sunshine, breakfasting off a savoury meal of mixed scraps that they had picked up in their perambulations about the city. There were many such dwellings in this neighbourhood, and the district physician lived not far off. The doctor had a very aged look, as if, at some distant period, he had been embalmed and pre- served in a dried-up state, though still alive. He might be consulted at all hours, and would be. found at his doorway among his herbs and simples, dressed in a pair of slippers and cotton breeches, and with ponderous spectacles across his shrivelled nose. But the door and walls of this public benefac- tor's abode were covered with an array of black plasters, to which the old man pointed with great pride as incontestable evidences of his professional skill. These plasters had a wide celebrity among his poor patients, and many a man, as a token of deep gratitude for some signal cure, had brought his plaster back as a certificate to adorn the residence where his deliverer dwelt.