I will call, in allusion
to the trade of its inhabitants, the Toymen's.... But what means this
noisy music, this charivari of flutes and trumpets, drums, and stringed
instruments? It is a funeral ceremony, and yonder is the door of the
defunct, and in front of it the Society of Funerals (there is such an
one at Pekin) has raised a triumphal arch, consisting of a wooden
framework, covered with old mats and pieces of stuffs. The family has
stationed a band at the door to proclaim its grief by rending the ears
of the passers-by.

"We quicken our steps in order to avoid being delayed in the middle of
the interminable procession. The gala-day in a Chinaman's life is the
day of his death. He economizes, he deprives himself of all the comforts
of life, he labours without rest or intermission, that he may have a
fine funeral!

"We do not get out of this accursed street! Here another large crowd
bars our passage; some proclamations and notices have just been
placarded on the door of the chief of the district police; people are
reading them aloud; some declaim them in a tone of bombast; while a
thousand commentaries, more satirical than the text, are uttered amidst
loud bursts of laughter.

"This liberty of mockery, pasquinade, and caricature at the expense of
the mandarins is one of the most original sides of Chinese manners.

"A band of blind beggars, in a costume more than light, pass along, hand
in hand; then an itinerant smith, a barber _al fresco_, and a cheap
restaurateur, simultaneously ply their different trades surrounded by
their customers.

"We dismounted from our horses, and by a covered passage or arcade
proceeded on foot to the legation. This passage, much favoured by
vendors of _bric-a-brac_, is simply a dark lane, 550 to 600 feet long,
where two people can hardly walk abreast. There are no proper shops
here, but collections of old planks, united anyhow, and supported by
piles of merchandise of all kinds, vases, porcelain, bronzes, arms, old
clothes, pipes; from the whole proceeds a foetid and insupportable
odour, tempered by the thick pungent smoke of lamps fed with rice-oil.

"The reader may judge with what pleasure we regained the pure air, the
blue sky, and all the comfortable appliances of our quarters at
Tsing-kong-fou."

* * * * *

Having made the journey from China to Europe five times by sea, Madame
de Bourboulon and her husband resolved that their sixth should be