d these overtures in a friendly spirit would be
incorrect. He seemed to be preparing for immediate hostilities, and
so, not to be taken at a disadvantage, I closed with him as he leaped
out of bed. The _melee_ lasted probably five minutes, during which
brief period his furniture was hurled in chaotic profusion all round
the room, my black mess jacket was divided up the back from the tail
to the collar, his pyjamas carried away, and the skin was detached
from his bare feet by my boots. So ended a glorious evening. Next day
we all lay low, but learnt that a certain person had interviewed the
Consul with a view to legal proceedings for alleged housebreaking. Our
enemy, however, was check-mated, and ourselves saved, by the veracious
testimony of a dear old Scotch lady, who lived in the adjoining house,
and who declared that our serenade was "verra nice though a wee bit
muxed," and that she herself had enjoyed it immensely.

One often hears of the flower-boats of Canton, and immediately
associates them with gaily-painted gondolas, tenanted by captivating
sirens and decorated with perfumed flowers and plants, growing with a
luxurious profusion common only to the Flowery Land. "Flower-girl" is
the universal Chinese term for those young women who dance and sing in
public, and who for regular fees attend at Chinese dinner-parties,
composed exclusively of men, to flirt with the guests while filling
their pipes and pouring out their wine. Poor parents having larger
families than they can support frequently sell one or two of their
best-looking daughters to professional trainers, who, after teaching
them to dance and sing, send them to the flower-boats in hopes that
they may there captivate wealthy _habitues_, when handsome prices
would be realised.

These girls are frequently not of bad character, but being on the
marriage market employ their wiles to secure husbands, in which they
sometimes succeed, passing into the hands of rich Chinese for three,
four or five hundred dollars, according to their merits, as wives of
an inferior rank, say number four or six.

At various places in the south, but especially at Canton and Wuchow, a
number of large, ugly junks with spacious cabins are moored alongside
each other in a certain locality. They possess no very striking
features, and those I have seen at Wuchow were absolutely devoid of
flowers or plants of any kind, the name "flower-boat" signifying
nothing more than the haunt of the fl