chap, ii.] THE CHINA BAZAAR. 33 



interest and on good security, he makes hard bargains and 

 gets fatter and richer every year. 



In the Chinese bazaar are hundreds of small shops in 

 which a miscellaneous collection of hardware and dry 

 goods are to be found, and where many things are sold 

 wonderfully cheap. You may buy gimlets at a penny 

 each, white cotton thread at four balls for a halfpenny 

 and penknives, corkscrews, gunpowder, writing-paper, and 

 many other articles as cheap or cheaper than you can 

 purchase them in England. The shopkeeper is very good- 

 natured ; he will show you everything he has, and does 

 not seem to mind if you buy nothing. He bates a little, 

 but not so much as the Klings, who almost always ask 

 twice what they are willing to take. If you buy a few 

 things of him, he will speak to you afterwards every time 

 you pass his shop, asking you to walk in and sit down, or 

 take a cup of tea, and you wonder how he can get a living 

 where so many sell the same trifling articles. The tailors 

 sit at a table, not on one; and both they and the shoe- 

 makers work well and cheaply. The barbers have plenty 

 to do, shaving heads and cleaning ears ; for which latter 

 operation they have a great array of little tweezers, picks, 

 and brushes. In the outskirts of the town are scores of 

 carpenters and blacksmiths. The former seem chiefly to 

 make coffins and highly painted and decorated clothes- 

 boxes. The latter are mostly gun-makers, and bore the 



VOL. I. D 



