. Boas SOO-CHOW VISITED. [Cuar. XM. 
together into the city, in order to make my selec- 
tions. 
When I left the boat, I confess I felt rather 
nervous as to the trial I was about to make. 
Although I had passed very well as a Chinaman 
in the country districts, I knew that the inhabitants 
of large towns, and particularly those in a town 
like this, were more difficult to deceive. My old 
friends, or I should rather say my enemies, the 
dogs, who are as acute as any Chinaman, evidently 
did not disown me as a countryman, and this at 
once gave me confidence. These animals manifest. 
very great hatred to foreigners, barking at them 
wherever they see them, and hanging on their 
skirts until they are fairly out of sight of the house 
or village where their masters reside. 
As I was crossing the bridge, which is built over 
the moat or canal on the outside of the city walls, 
numbers of the Chinese were loitering on it, 
leaning over its sides, and looking down upon the 
boats which were plying to and fro. I stopped 
too, and looked down upon the gay and happy 
throng, with a feeling of secret triumph when I 
remembered that I was now in the most fashion- 
able city of the Celestial Empire, where no 
Englishman, as far as I knew, had ever been 
before. None of the loiterers on the bridge 
appeared to pay the slightest attention to me, by 
which I concluded that I must be very much like 
one of themselves. How surprised they would 
