before it
is sold for use, and in the shops at Canton it may be seen in every
stage of manufacture. Their ducks and geese are fine birds, and, with
excellent pork, and their never-failing rice, are the favorite dishes of
such as can afford them; which, by the way, they really know how to
cook--an art that is very little understood in England or America.

Dog chow-chow, kittens, rats, and mice, with crickets and locusts, are
only eaten by the vilest of the vile--poor wretches, who must support
themselves and families on a pittance of about fifteen or twenty dollars
a year.

Of course there are many things in their way of cookery, and in their
tastes for such articles as sharks' fins, fish maws, _beche-de-mer_,
etc., which are revolting to an educated stomach; but in their way the
Chinese are quite as dainty as the most fastidious of other lands, and
in fine vegetables, fish, and fruits they enjoy as much variety and
evince as discriminating a taste as any people in the world. Their fish
are sold in the markets alive, and taken from the tanks as selected by
the purchaser. Their way of drinking tea will be found, after
familiarity, superior to ours, for when milk is not used the finer aroma
of the leaf is obtained. Indeed, they are very particular in regard to
the quality and decoction of their tea, totally refusing the poisonous
green teas that are consumed in such quantities in England, and
especially in America.

They know, too, how to draw it, and just at the right moment the boiling
water is poured upon the leaf, and, without allowing it to simmer by the
fire, as we do, long enough to get the flavor of the stalks and stems,
they drink it off as soon as the boiling water has fairly acted upon the
delicate leaves. English tea-drinkers, who like to mix a green and a
black tea, and allow it to steam for a quarter of an hour to make it
strong, complain that Chinese tea is mere dishwater, just as the man
accustomed to get boozy on brandy, made 'fiery' with sulphuric acid, has
no taste for the light French wines. A Chinaman colors his green tea
with Prussian blue for his foreign customers, who like a bright, pretty
color; but he is too wise to drink it. This process of coloring we have
seen, publicly, in the tea factories of Shanghai; and the disgust with
which the manufacturer denied that he ever drank his own wares, was too
strong to be assumed. 'No good,' was his only reply.

Despite the filth and many disagreeable t