44 SIAN-FU, THE MAGNIFICENT 



strikes both parties as a perfectly natural and satis- 

 factory arrangement, which the watchman makes 

 no bones about admitting. A certain foreigner 

 noticing that after the first outburst of energy on 

 the part of a man newly engaged, things were 

 pretty quiet, asked him why he did not go his 

 rounds. The man at once explained that he had 

 made an arrangement whereby he was not to be 

 disturbed and assured his employer that his goods 

 were quite safe; as indeed they were. We 

 occupied part of a large inn, which was luxurious 

 for China. After the nightly explosions from the 

 Governor's yamen they nearly blew us up one 

 night returning from dinner with Mr. Henne, the 

 postmaster, who was most kind to us and who, 

 I regret to say, was badly injured during the 

 subsequent troubles when the gates were locked 

 and the keys delivered, when the " rub-a-dub-dub, 

 slap-slap-slap " of the masseurs, the cries and drums 

 of street-hawkers, and the exhortations of the 

 Baptist evangelist and the Chinese philosopher 

 round the corner had died away, the hot steaming 

 night began. Towards one o'clock it cooled and 

 from the other side of the thin mud wall behind 

 my bed came a confused murmur. It is one thing 

 to kill a beast in fair hunting, another to be the 

 passive spectator of an animal slaughtered for food, 

 and again quite another to find oneself in the small 

 hours an unwilling auditor of the death agonies 

 of half-a-dozen pigs. A dog yelped amid a chorus 

 of weary grunts. Then a man's monotonous voice 

 quelled the murmur, " Leh, leh, leh, leh, leh, leh, 

 leh, leh " ad infinitum, calling as chickens are called 

 to be fed. Then a scuffling, followed by a porcine 



