g indicated a semi-tropical climate. These Chinese gardeners
exhibit great skill and genius in the cultivation of all plants, and
landscape gardening is carried far beyond our ideas of the art in
America. Some flowering shrubs, on close examination, proved to be old
friends, but so trained and developed as to be hardly recognizable. We
observed a curious mode of grafting plants so as to cause several
species to blossom on the same branch, thus forming, as it were, a
glowing bouquet. The samples of dwarf trees were also very singular,--a
little orange-tree, for instance, bearing an orange weighing more than
itself, and lemons so arranged as to grow by grafting in and with an
orange. It was an agreeable sight to see choice bouquets for sale on the
public streets, containing a great variety of flowers arranged with
genuine taste, a little too formal and stiff to meet our fancy, but yet
finding ready customers at reasonable prices. In Madrid, Florence, or
Paris, it is sunny-faced girls who offer these fragrant emblems to the
passer-by; but at Hong Kong it is done with less effect by almond-eyed
men and ragged boys. The city is so far Europeanized as to be less
typical of Chinese manners and customs than are cities further inland;
but revelations come upon us with less of a shock when mingled, as they
are here, with more civilized methods.

The policemen of Hong Kong are Sikhs, whom the English government have
imported from India for this special service. These officers are under
excellent discipline. They are tall, dark, and heavily bearded men,
presenting quite a striking appearance in their semi-military uniforms.
Of course they have no sympathy with the Chinese, who cower under the
police batons, which are ruthlessly used when deemed necessary. Society
in the city is entirely English, and, to use an expressive word, is
"fast." Balls, races, regattas, and fetes of all kinds follow each other
with ceaseless energy. The gayety of domestic and social life, and the
luxurious mode of living generally, exceed that of any European colony
we have chanced to meet with. Club life, evening entertainments, and
late hours, are the characteristics of Hong Kong; the serious affairs of
life seem to have been left at home in far-off England,--an inevitable
result where the military element enters so largely into the community.

It was represented to us, and so appeared upon observation, that the
well known practice of compressing the feet