ghter of Professor N. W. Fiske,
she married first Mr. Hunt, of the United States Engineer
Corps, and after his death a Mr. Jackson. She died in 1885.
From her work entitled "Bits of Travel at Home," a series of
racy sketches of experience east and west, we extract her
narrative of the odd and amusing things she saw in the Chinese
quarter of San Francisco.]

Sing, Wo & Co. keep one of the most picturesque shops on Jackson Street.
It is neither grocer's, nor butcher's, nor fishmonger's, nor druggist's;
but a little of all four. It is like most of the shops on Jackson
Street, part cellar, part cellar-stairs, part sidewalk, and part back
bedroom. On the sidewalk are platters of innumerable sorts of little
fishes,--little silvery fishes; little yellow fishes, with whiskers;
little snaky fishes; round flat fishes; little slices of big
fishes,--never too much or too many of any kind. Sparing and thrifty
dealers, as well as sparing and thrifty consumers, are the Celestials.
Round tubs of sprouted beans; platters of square cakes of something
whose consistency was like Dutch cheese, whose color was vivid yellow,
like baker's gingerbread, and whose tops were stamped with mysterious
letters; long roots, as long as the longest parsnips, but glistening
white, like polished turnips; cherries, tied up in stingy little bunches
of ten or twelve, and swung in all the nooks; small bunches of all
conceivable green things, from celery down to timothy grass, tied tight
and wedged into corners, or swung overhead; dried herbs, in dim
recesses; pressed chickens, on shelves (those were the most remarkable
things. They were semi-transparent, thin, skinny, and yellow, and looked
almost more like huge, flattened grasshoppers than like chickens; but
chickens they were, and no mistake),--all these were on the trays, on
the sidewalk, and on the cellar-stairs.

In the back bedroom were Mrs. Sing and Mrs. Wo, with several little
Sings and Wos. It was too dark to see what they were doing; for the only
light came from the open front of the shop, which seemed to run back
like a cave in a hill. On shelves on the sides were teacups and teapots,
and plates of fantastic shapes and gay colors. Sing and Wo were most
courteous; but their interest centred entirely on sales; and I could
learn but one fact from them in regard to any of their goods. It was
either "Muchee good. Englis man muchee like," or else, "China man like;
Englis