SIX WEEKS IN A TOWER. 75 



on long granite slabs scarcely two feet wide, which 

 made dubious bridges for even a sure-footed animal. 

 The pony had a habit of diving into turnip -fields, 

 which the bit could not check, and of apparently 

 standing on its head, which the saddle could not 

 bear. A tall fine young military mandarin, the 

 eldest son of Kum. Sau, went on it for a visit one 

 day, but he was brought back with what he called 

 a dislocated, but which appeared only a sprained, 

 hip, that laid him up for weeks. The beast was 

 quiet enough, excepting in its mania for turnips ; 

 but it was impossible to mount without some one to 

 hold the enormous saddle, and not always easy to 

 preserve the balance of that cumbrous article, which 

 was about the size of an elephant's back. The first 

 day I tried it, I found my limbs so benumbed on 

 getting home that I had to be lifted off bodily ; and 

 the dirty cotton reins broke twice in the course of 

 the ride. 



Chinese women of the better classes are kept very 

 much secluded, and we had no intercourse with that 

 department of the house. Once I happened to be 

 sunning myself at the gateway, when the wife of 

 Twenty-Six returned from a visit in a chair. She 

 was a very handsome young woman, and slightly 

 painted in imitation of that profusion of surface- 

 blood which is a desire of the eye to the lemon- 

 coloured Chinaman as well as to the ruddier Occi- 

 dental. Under some pretence or other, there being 



