KASHMIR TO CHINA 225 



thousand cells, each but a few feet square. In these 

 the candidates are confined for three days, during 

 which time, we were told by Ah Cum, they are re- 

 quired to write an essay on any subject in the uni- 

 verse which it pleases the examiners to give them. 

 Out of the total number, which may extend to the 

 full eleven thousand, so far as the accommodations 

 are concerned, only eighty-eight are passed. The 

 examination takes place every three years, and is 

 said to require, with the preparation for the first 

 degree, seventeen years of study. If a candidate is 

 caught cheating he is promptly taken out and be- 

 headed an excellent custom. 



In the evening we returned to the steamer, and 

 once more turned toward Hongkong, glad, I must 

 say, to leave behind us the smells, the noise, and 

 above all the oppressing effect of the dirty, ill-lighted 

 passages, with their hurrying streams of unwashed 

 brown humanity. 



