402 Voyage of the Novara. 



road. A part of tlie head and tlie right hand had been 

 already stripped of the flesh by the carrion-crows, and enor- 

 mous swarms of insects had fastened on the upper portions of 

 the naked horribly swollen dead body. The miserable being 

 had obviously fallen a victim to want and destitution. His 

 strength seemed to have failed him while he was earning his 

 miserable subsistence, as two empty broken panniers were 

 lying close beside him. Crowds of people were passing daily, 

 men, women, childi'en, even Portuguese taking their custom- 

 ary promenade on foot or on horseback, without any person 

 giving himself the least trouble to remove the shocking 

 spectacle. Even the representations of the foreign consuls 

 seem to have but little influence on the Portuguese authorities 

 in these matters, and it appears that it is by no means an in- 

 frequent occurrence to see dead bodies lying about. A hardly 

 less sickening spectacle was presented on the slope of the hill, 

 where were erected a couple of dozen of small, wretched, filthy 

 huts of palm-straw, which served for the reception of a num- 

 ber of sick and lepers, who, shunned and abandoned by all 

 the world, were sinking in their misery into the grave. Le- 

 prosy is regarded by the Chinese as a punishment for se- 

 cret sins, and those visited with it are accordingly deprived 

 of all assistance or attention. Very probably this coolie, 

 whose body we thus saw lying on the road, was one of those 

 unfortunates who were here digging, as it were, their own 

 graves. 



The isthmus which unites the PortuG:uese settlement on the 



