THE CHINESE IN SAN FRANCISCO. 661 
almost their only furniture. In these houses their simple 
cooking is performed in the long halls into which their apart- 
ments open, over furnaces, with no legitimate outlet for the 
coul-smoke, which leaves its black and greasy deposit half 
an inch thick on the ceiling and walls. I went into several 
of their fashionable restaurants, and found them hardly less | 
filthy than their lodgings, yet with a marvellous — of 
complicated and indescribable delicacies, which a year's in- 
come of the establishment might have tempted me to touch, 
but certainly not to taste. 
Their provision-shops contain little except pork, and that, 
seldom in a form in which it would be recognized by an un- 
practised eye. Every part of the swine, even the coagulated 
blood, is utilized; and the modes in which the various por- 
tions of the beast are chopped, minced, wrapped in intes- 
tines, dried almost to petrifaction, commingled with nauseous 
Seasonings, pique the curiosity as.much as they offend the 
nostrils of the American observer. 
Their theatres offer an amazing spectacle. Their perform- 
ances commence early in the forenoon, and last till midnight. 
Their plays are said to be historical, and they are often con- 
tinued for several days. The scenery is simple, cheap, and 
gaudy, and is never changed. The costumes are splendid, 
With a vast amount of gilding and of costly materials, but 
inexpressibly grotesque, and many of the actors wear hide- 
ous masks. The orchestra consists of a tom-tom (which 
Sounds as if a huge brass kettle were lustily beaten by iron 
drumsticks), and qiie of the shrillest of wind-instru- 
ments. The noise they make may be music to a Chinese 
eur, but it consists wholly of the harshest discords, and each 
performer seems to be playing on his own account, and to be 
intent on making all the noise he can. This noise is uninter- 
rupted, and the. actors who are all men (men playing the 
emale parts in costume), shout their parts above the din in 
a falsetto recitative, monotonous till toward the close of a 
Speech, but uniformly winding up with a long-drawn, many- 
