CHAPTER XVII. 



CHINA. NEIV GUINEA. 



Hong Kong. Pigeon English. Chinese Method of writing compared 

 with European Methods. Development of Chinese and Japanese 

 Books from Rolls. Plants colonizing a Pagoda. Sights of Canton. 

 Chinese and English Examinations, and their Subjects compared. 

 The Honam Monastery. Chinese Floral Decorations. A Chinese 

 Dinner. Dragons' Bones and Teeth. Origin of Mythical Animals. 

 Chinese Account of the Dragon. The last Dragon seen in England. 

 Use of Unicorn's Horn as Medicine in Europe. Chinese and English 

 Medicine compared. Chinese Accounts of the Pigmies and of 

 Monkeys. English Mythical Animals. The Sea Serpent. Owls 

 living with Ground Squirrel in China. Off the Talaur Islands. 

 Driftwood off the Ambcrnoh River, New Guinea. Animals In- 

 habiting it. Humboldt Bay. Signal Fires of the Natives. Barter- 

 ing at Night. Numbers of Canoes. Relative Prices of Native 

 Property. Attempts at Thieving. Modes of Expression. Mode 

 of Threatening Death by Signs. Armed Boat Robbed. Villages of 

 Pile-Dwellings. 



Hong Kong, November 17th, 1874, to January 6th, 1875. — 



The ship was no sooner anchored at Hong Kong, than 

 miserable-looking Chinese came off in small boats, and began 

 dredging round it for refuse of all kinds, carefully washing an 

 old cabbage stalk or beef bone, and preserving it for food. 

 Such boats, usually worked by a single old man, were at work 

 about the ship during nearly the entire time of our stay in 

 the port, a constant evidence of the desperate nature of the 

 struggle for existence amongst the inhabitants of the country. 



We soon began to learn " Pigeon English." It is not by 

 any means an easy language to learn ; that is, to really learn it. 

 A new comer often mauls his speech in a childish fashion, 

 putting " ey " at the end of every word, and believes he is a 

 master of the language. But such is not the case ; Pigeon 

 English is a very definite language, as more than one book 

 written on the language has shown, and unless one knows the 

 accepted terms for things in it, one may be entirely at a loss 

 to make oneself understood by the Chinese. 



por example, I wanted to visit a Chinese theatre in Hong 



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