d from generation to generation, result in the
production of an ill-conditioned and inferior race of people.

A three-storied pagoda on a prominent hill to the right marks the
approach to Nam-hung, and another of nine stories marks the entrance.
Swarms of people follow us through the streets, rushing with eager
curiosity to obtain a glimpse of my face. Sometimes the surging masses of
people, struggling and pushing and dodging, separate me from the coolies,
and the din of the shouting and laughing is so great that my shouts to
them to stop are unheard. A shout, or a wave of the hand results only in
a quickening of the people's curiosity and an increase in the volume of
their own noisiness. Thus hemmed in among a compact mass of apparently
well-meaning, but highly inflammable Chinese, hooting, calling, laughing,
and gesticulating, I follow the lead of Ching-We and Wong-Yup through a
mile of streets to the hittim.

Rich native wares are displayed in great abundance, silks, satins, and
fur-lined clothing so costly and luxurious, and in such numbers, that one
wonders where they find purchasers for them all. Side by side with these
are idol factories, where Joss may be seen in every stage of existence,
from the unhewn log of his first estate to the proud pre-eminence of his
highly finished condition, painted, gilded, and furbished. Coffin
warehouses in which burial cases are displayed in tempting array are
always conspicuous in a Chinese city. The coffins are made of curious
slabs, jointed together in imitation of a solid log; some of these are
varnished in a style calculated to make the eyes of a prospective corpse
beam with joyous anticipation; others are plainly finished, destined for
the abode of humbler and less pretentious remains.

At the hittim, with much angry expostulation and firmness of decision,
the following mob are barred entrance to our room. They are not, by any
means satisfied, however; they quickly smash in a little closed panel so
they can look in, and every crack between the boards betrays a row of
peering eyes. Ching-We is a hollow-eyed victim of the drug, and yearns
for peace and quiet so that he can pass away the evening amid the
seductive pleasures of the opium-smoker's heaven. The rattle and racket
of the determined sight-seers outside, clamorously demanding to come in
and see the Fankwae, annoy him to the verge of desperation under the
circumstances.

He patiently endeavors to forget it all, howe