Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/408

 Yang, not content with his triumphs in that branch of science, frequently carried his researches and experiments to a pitch that caused the members of his multitudinous household no less in- convenience than alarm. Yang was a fine sample of the modern Chinese savant — fat, good-natured and contented; but much inclined to take short cuts to scientific knowledge, and to esteem his own incomplete and hap-hazard achievements the results of marvellously perfect intelligence. His house, like most others in China, was approached through a lane hedged in by high brick walls on either side, so that there was nothing to be seen of it from without save the small doorway and a low brick par- tition about six feet beyond the threshold — the latter intend- ed to prevent the ingress of the spirits of the dead. Within there was the usual array of courts and halls, reached by narrow vine-shaded corridors ; but each court was tastefully laid out with rockeries, flowers, fish-ponds, bridges and pavilions. Really the place was very picturesque and admirably suited to the disposition of a people affecting seclusion and the pleasures of family life ; and who (so far as the women are concerned) know little or nothing of the world in which they live, beyond what they gather within the walls of their own abode.

Here I was, then, admitted at last into the sacred precincts of the mysterious Chinese dwelling. Its proprietor was an ama- teur, not merely of photography, but of chemistry and electricity too ; and he had a laboratory fitted up in the ladies ' quarter. In one corner of this laboratory stood a black carved bedstead, curtained with silk and pillowed with wood; while a carved bench, also of black wood, supported a heterogeneous collection of instruments, chemical, electrical and photographic, besides Chinese and European books. The walls were garnished with enlarged photographs of Yang's family and friends. In a small