A SEEIOUS QUESTIOX. 2G3 



off different ways, as having seen enough, and more than 

 enough. AYas he, after all, an honest man and true ? Or had 

 he, like Ah Sin, in ]\lr. Bret Harte's delectable ballad, with 

 "the smile that was child-like and bland" 



* In his sleeves, Avliicli were large, 

 Twenty- four packs of cards, 

 And On his nails, which were taper, 

 \Yhat's common in tapers that's wax ?" 



I know not ; for the Chinese visage is unfathomable. But I 

 incline to this day to the more charitalile judgment ; for the 

 man's face haunted me, and haunts me still ; and I am weak 

 enough to believe that I should know the man and like him, 

 if T met him in another planet, a thousand years hence. 



Then I walked back under the blazing sun across the 

 Savanna, over the sensitive plants and the mole-crickets' 

 nests, while the great locusts whirred up before me at every 

 step : toward the archway between the bamboo-clumps, and 

 the red sentry sliining like a spark of fire beneath its deep 

 shadow ; and found on my way a dying racehorse, with a 

 gi'oup of coloured men round him, whom I advised in vain to 

 do the one thing needful put a blanket over him to keep off 

 the sun, for the poor thing had fallen from sunstroke ; so I 

 left them to jal)ber and do nothing : asking myself Is the 

 human race, in the matter of amusements, as civilized as it 

 was say three thousand years ago? People have, certainly 



