n a perpetual state of fumigation adorn its nooks
and corners; overhead swing shelves of images rehearsing historical
tableaux; there is much carving and gilding, and red and green paint. It
is the scene of a perennial feast of lanterns, and the worshipful enter
silently with burnt-offerings and meat-offerings and drink-offerings,
which they spread before the altar under the feet of some colossal god;
then, with repeated genuflections, they retire. The thundering gong or
the screaming pipes startle us at intervals, and white-robed priests
pass in and out, droning their litanies.

At this point the artist suggests refreshments; arm in arm we pass down
the street, surfeited with sight-seeing, weary of the multitudinous
bazaars, the swarming coolies, the boom of beehive industry. Swamped in
a surging crowd, we are cast upon the catafalque of the celestial
dead. The coffin lies under a canopy, surrounded by flambeaux, grave
offerings, guards and musicians.

Chinatown has become sufficiently acclimatized to begin to put forth its
natural buds again as freely as if this were indeed the Flowery Land.
The funeral pageant moves,--a dozen carriages preceded by mourners on
foot, clad in white, their heads covered, their feet bare, their grief
insupportable, so that an attendant is at hand to sustain each mourner
howling at the wheels of the hearse. An orchestra heads the procession;
the air is flooded with paper prayers that are cast hither at you to
appease the troubled spirit. They are on their way to the cemetery
among the hills toward the sea, where the funeral rites are observed as
rigorously as they are on Asian soil.

We are still unrefreshed and sorely in need of rest. Overhead swing huge
balloon lanterns and tufts of gold-flecked scarlet streamers,--a sight
that maketh the palate of the hungry Asiatic to water, for within this
house may be had all the delicacies of the season, ranging from the
confections of the fond suckling to funeral bakemeats. Legends wrought
in tinsel decorate the walls. Here is a shrine with a vermilion-faced
god and a native lamp, and stalks of such hopelessly artificial flowers
as fortunately are unknown in nature. Saffron silks flutter their
fringes in the steams of nameless cookery--for all this is but the
kitchen, and the beginning of the end we aim at.

A spiral staircase winds like a corkscrew from floor to floor; we ascend
by easy stages, through various grades of hunger, from the economi