*

On the 17th of May she left Tahiti, the Dutch vessel in which she had
embarked being bound _via_ the Philippines. This rich and radiant island
group they passed on the 1st of July, and the next day entered the
dangerous China Sea. Soon afterwards they reached Hong Kong, which had
been an English settlement since 1842. But as Madame Pfeiffer wanted to
see the Chinese at home, she made no stay in this hybrid town, but
ascended the Pearl River, marvelling much at the immense
rice-plantations on either bank, and the quaint little country houses,
with their fronts of coloured tiles, to Canton. As she approached this
great seat of commerce, she was much moved by the liveliness of the
scene. The river was thronged with ships and inhabited boats--with junks
almost as large as the old Spanish galleons, their poops impending far
over the water, and covered in with a roof, like a house; with
men-of-war, flat, broad, and long, mounted with twenty or thirty guns,
and ornamented in the usual Chinese mode, with two large painted eyes at
the prow, that they may be the better able to see their way. Mandarins'
boats she saw, with doors, and sides, and windows gaily painted, with
carved galleries, and tiny silken flags fluttering from every point. And
flower-boats she also saw; their upper galleries decked with flowers,
garlands, and arabesques, as if they were barks fitted out for the
enjoyment of Queen Titania and her fairy company. The interior is
divided into one large apartment and a few cabinets, which are lighted
by quaint-patterned windows. Mirrors and silken hangings embellish the
sides, while the enchanting scene is completed with a liberal store of
glass chandeliers and coloured paper lanterns, interspersed with lovely
little baskets of fresh flowers.

It was characteristic of Madame Pfeiffer that she found access to so
much which no European woman had ever seen before. She obtained entrance
even into a Buddhist temple--that of Honan, reputed to be one of the
finest in China. A high wall surrounds the sacred enclosure. The
visitor enters first a large outer court, and thence, through a huge
gateway, passes into the inner. Beneath the gateway stand the statues of
war-gods, each eighteen feet high, with faces terribly distorted, and in
the most threatening attitudes; these are supposed to prevent the
approach of evil genii. A second portal, similarly constructed, under
which the "four heavenly kings" sit enthroned, lea