feathers reached out at least three feet
behind, and curved and swayed with each step the man took. When three or
four of these were on the stage together, marching and countermarching,
wrestling, fighting, and tumbling, why these tail feathers did not
break, did not become entangled with each other, no mortal can divine.
Others had huge wings of silver filigree-work behind their ears. These
also swayed and flapped at each step.

Sometimes there would be forty or fifty of these nondescript creatures
on the stage at once, running, gesticulating, attacking, retreating,
howling, bowing, bending, tripping each other up, stalking, strutting,
and all the while caterwauling, and all the time the drums beating,
the gongs ringing, and the stringed instruments and the castanets and
the fifes playing. It was dazzling as a gigantic kaleidoscope and
deafening as a cotton-mill. After the plays came wonderful tumbling and
somersaulting. To see such gymnastic feats performed by men in long
damask nightgowns and with wide trousers is uncommonly droll. This is
really the best thing at the Chinese Theatre,--the only thing, in fact,
which is not incomprehensibly childish.

My last glimpse at the Chinese Empire was in Mr. Loomis's Sunday-school.
I had curiosity to see the faces of the boys who had refused our
invitation to the theatre. As soon as I entered the room I was asked to
take charge of a class. In vain I demurred and refused.

"You surely can hear them read a chapter in the New Testament."

It seemed inhuman as well as unchristian to refuse, for there were
several classes without teachers, many good San Franciscans having gone
into the country. There were the eager yellow faces watching for my
reply. So I sat down in a pew with three Chinese young men on my right
hand, two on my left, and four in the pew in front, all with English
and Chinese Testaments in their hands. The lesson for the day was the
fifteenth chapter of Matthew. They read slowly, but with greater
accuracy of emphasis and pronunciation than I expected. Their patience
and eagerness in trying to correct a mispronunciation were touching. At
last came the end of the chapter.

"Now do you go on to the next chapter?" said I.

"No. Arx-play-in," said the brightest of the boys. "You arx-play-in what
we rade to you."

I wished the floor of that Sunday-school chapel would open and swallow
me up. To expound the fifteenth of Matthew at all; above all, to expound
it in E