SHOOTING IN CHINA. 317 



evening's really good shooting, by ascertaining their 

 usual flight as they left the millet-fields for their 

 roosting quarters. I have often had an hour's sharp 

 work, where a really straight gun is necessary; and 

 they are excellent eating, which adds very consider- 

 ably to the pleasure of bagging them. Snakes are 

 often started when wading through the rice-fields, and 

 one kind, which is almost perfectly black, I have seen 

 ten feet long. I believe they are harmless, but a felLow 

 of that size gliding past your legs is not agreeable. 



Chinamen resemble their neighbours the Japanese 

 in one thing at any rate ; they never waste manure 

 of any kind, that which is chiefiy prized being from 

 their own houses or tubs outside their doors. This 

 is collected in great pits in the fields, and covered 

 over with a thin coating of mud, which hardens in the 

 sun, and acts as the crust to a pie. It preserves the 

 precious article underneath from the sun and rain, 

 both of which deteriorate the strength of this most 

 potent manure that is so grievously wasted in our own 

 country. 



In January 1876 the gun-boat was laid up for a 

 week for the purpose of being repaired, and I had 

 gone up the Canton river with three companions to 

 have some snipe-shooting. A good junk was hired at 



