e those of the old Greek poets. The Chinese have had no such
writers as Sophocles or Euripides, no such creators of plays as
Shakespeare, and they have no such actors as a Garrick or an Irving.
We were invited to seats on the stage--which had no curtains,
everything being done openly. In order to reach the stage the guide
conducted us down the passageway or aisle through the midst of the
audience. Then we ascended a platform at the end of the stage and went
behind it into a long room where the actors were putting on costumes
of a fantastic shape and painting their faces with bright coloured
pigments. Some of them also put on masks that would frighten a person
should he meet the wearers suddenly. The majority of the masks were
caricatures of the human face and were comical in expression. We felt
quite at home on the stage at once; for here, seated on either side
with the actors in the midst of the company, were many of our friends
lay and clerical, men and women, looking on in wonder at the strange
performance. An orchestra of six or seven members was here on the
back part of the stage--and the music! It consisted of the beating of
drums, the sounding of gongs and other outlandish noises. Now and then
above the din you could catch the sound of a clarionet and the feeble
strains of a banjo. It was indeed pandemonium! Yet above all the noise
and confusion you could hear the high pitched voices of the actors
as they shouted and gesticulated. The audience, I noticed, was most
attentive and decorous. They were evidently well pleased with the
play; and what was quite remarkable they seemed to have neither ears
nor eyes for their visitors. Of course they must have seen us, but
with an indifference that almost bordered on contempt they paid no
attention to us.

In the play one of the actors died on the stage, but the death had
nothing of the tragic or heroic in it. After a brief interval he rose
up and walked off amid the merriment of the audience.

Many Chinamen come here to spend their evening. The admission is fifty
cents, which entitles one to a seat. As the play runs through six
hours at a time, they feel that they get the worth of their money.
They meet their friends there also; and although they are not very
demonstrative towards each other, like the warm blooded races of Italy
and Greece and Northern Europe and the United States, yet they are
very happy in the presence of men of their own race and nation. The
theatre i