64 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. V. 
Medical Missionary, and was dressed a la Chinoise, tail 
and all complete, but truth compels me to state that his 
dress was rather a ludicrous one. I recollect one evening 
after dark going out into one of the main streets, accom- 
panied by the doctor, to see an offering which was there 
presented to the gods, and I soon found that he in his 
Chinese dress was a greater object of attention than I 
was in my English one. I had obtained a room in the 
same house with my friend, who was visited daily by 
great numbers of the Chinese, and who, although not a 
very good Chinaman, was most zealous in the cause of 
medical missions. 
As the winter approached the weather became ex- 
tremely cold, and in December and January the ice on 
the ponds and canals was of considerable thickness. The 
most attractive shops in the city now were the different 
clothing establishments, where all articles of wearing 
apparel were lined with skins of various kinds, many of 
them of the most costly description. The very poorest 
j Chinese has always a warm jacket or cloak lined with 
I sheepskin, or padded with cotton, for the winter ; and 
\ they cannot imagine how the Europeans can exist with 
the thin clothing they generally go about in. When the 
' weather was cold I used always to wear a stout warm 
great-coat above my other dress, and yet the Chinese 
, were continually feeling the thickness of my clothes, and 
telling me that surely I must feel cold. Their mode of 
keeping themselves comfortable in winter differs entirely 
from ours ; they rarely or never think of using fires in 
their rooms for this purpose, but, as the cold increases, 
I they just put on another jacket or two, until they feel 
