OF THE SOUTH SEAS 215 



feet, as if they feared to risk the seduction of the 

 land, and felt themselves safer parted from the shore. 

 On all the street-level verandas, the entrances to the 

 shops and the restaurants, the hundreds of natives who 

 had not wanted other lodging slept as children in 

 cradles until they should rise for coffee before the 

 market-bell. 



From the Chinese shop at the corner the strains of a 

 Canton actor's falsetto, with the squeak of the Celestial 

 fiddles issued from a phonograph, but so real I fancied 

 I was again on Shameen, listening over the Canton 

 River to the noises of the night, the music, and the sing- 

 song girls of the silver combs. 



I went on, and met the peanut-man. He sold me two 

 small bags of roasted goobers for eight sous. He wore 

 the brown, oilskin-like, two-piece suit of the Chinese of 

 southern China, and he had no teeth and no hair, and 

 his eyes would not stay open. He had to open them 

 with his fingers, so that most of the time he was blind; 

 but he counted money accuratelj^, and he had a tidy 

 bag of silver and coppers strapped to his stomach. He 

 looked a hundred years old. 



When I paid for the two bags, he raised his lids, be- 

 lieved that I was a speaker of English, and said, "Fine 

 businee !" 



As I went past the queen's palace, the two mdhus 

 were chanting low, as they sat on the curbing, and they 

 glanced coquettishly at me, but asked only for ciga- 

 rettes. I gave them a package of Marinas, made in 

 the Faubourg Bab-el-oued, in Algiers, and they said 

 "Maruru" and "Merci" in tm'n and in unison. Strange 

 men these, one bearded and handsome, the other slender 



