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 but are always either parallel with or at right angles to the three main roads. Viewed from any stand-point on the outer wall, the whole scene is disappointing. With the exception of the palace buildings, the Buddhist shrines, the Temple of Heaven, the Roman Catholic Cathedral and the official yamens, the houses never rise above the low, modest, uniform level prescribed for them by law. Much, too, that is ruinous and dilapidated pre- sents itself to the gaze. Here and there we see open spaces and green trees that shade the buildings of the rich; but again the eye wearies of its wanderings over hundreds of acres of tiles and walls all of one stereotyped pattern, and cannot help noticing that the isolation of the Chinese begins with the family unit at home. There stands the sacred dwelling of the mighty Emperor, walled round and round ; his person protected from the gaze of the outer world by countless courts and *' halls of sacred harmony"; and one can note the same exclusiveness carried out in all the dwellings of his people. Each residence is enclos- ed in a wall of its own, and a single outer entrance gives access to courts and reception-rooms, beyond which the most favoured guest may not intrude to violate by his mere presence the sanctity of the domicile. There are, of course, tens of thousands of houses and hovels where this arrangement cannot be observed, but where the people, nevertheless, manage to sustain a sort of dignified isolation by investing themselves with an air of self-importance, which the very street beggars never wholly lay aside. These, if they be Manchus, are proud at any rate of their sheepskin coats; or if they be not, then the more fugitive covering of mud, which is all that hides their nakedness, is still carried with a sort of stolid solemnity which would be ludicrous were it not for their misfortunes.

I had the good fortune while in the metropolis to be introduced