Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/273

 from a house above. Yen-ping was a Chinese city, and yet one could breathe pure mountain air on its upper wall, and encounter some very pretty sights. On one occasion, when taking a view from a steep hill on the other side of the river, and while making my way up to a level space, I slipped my footing and caught hold of some grass that stood twelve or fifteen feet high there. The blades of this grass are furnished with an array of sharp teeth, that ripped my hands up like a saw ; but at the same time it saved me a rapid descent of about two hundred feet, and a final plunge of a clear hundred more into the river below. Near this place, in a small village, we found the two widows and family of a deceased mandarin, sending a complete retinue to the spirit of their departed lord. A pile of huge paper models of houses and furniture, boats and sedans, ladies-in-waiting and gentlemen-pages were brought down to the banks of the river and there burned before the wailing widows. These effigies are supposed to be transformed by fire into the spiritual reality of the things which they represent. Many of the articles were covered with tin-foil, and when the sacrifice was over a seedy- looking trader bought the ashes, that he might sift them and secure the tin that had refused to put on an ethereal shape.

Many of the men hereabouts appeared deformed, but the deformity was due to the small charcoal furnaces which they carried concealed beneath the dress, and used to keep their bodies warm. As there are no fire-places in the houses, these portable furnaces prove very convenient substitutes. At first, when I saw so many humps about, I supposed that some special disease must be common in the place, or else that the sufferers had gathered themselves together from different parts of the empire to test the efficacy of some curative spring, like those hot wells near Foochow, where I have seen crowds of feeble