A CHINESE CROWD 229 



packed with people, and it was difficult to make 

 any progress. Outside the Viceroy's yamen. marked 

 by four huge red masts, and painted lions petrified 

 apparently by their own ugliness, surged an enormous 

 crowd. Everywhere were bustle and confusion. 

 Judging by the faces of the ruffians who composed 

 the dregs of the mob, a hard task lay before the 

 revolutionary army, when it did arrive, in sup- 

 pressing rioting and keeping order. In certain 

 aspects the human form is, no doubt, divine. 

 Ignorant, superstitious, improvident, and debased, 

 their lives wholly occupied by some form of manual 

 labour, it is small wonder if any such likeness is 

 effiiced from the appearance of the lowest orders 

 of the Chinese race. It is difficult for any one 

 who has never seen a really low-class crowd in 

 China to realise in how singularly unattractive a 

 mould humanity may be cast. Even the poor 

 little children are usually dirty and unprepossessing, 

 and nearly all young animals are attractive. More 

 often than not they are howling with grief or 

 anger, and form an unpleasing contrast to the 

 juv^enile population of Japan; but there "the 

 babies are the kings ! " The only occasion I can 

 remember on which I heard a Jap baby crying 

 was Avhen we ran down a junk in the Straits 

 of Shimonoseki. A bewildering confusion of lights 

 confronted us. Suddenly from the bows a voice 

 cried " Junk dead ahead ! " " All right ! " called 

 back the captain ; next minute came a splintering 

 crash, a tearing of sails, and a prolonged crackling 

 as the bamboo mast went by the board. A man 

 began shouting monotonously, a dark mass swung 

 under our bows, I heard a child's whimper and a 



