92 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. VII. 
kind of bank or government shroff establishment, in 
company with two or three gentlemen who were here 
for purposes of trade. As none of us carried a cooking 
establishment with us, our meals were necessarily of the 
roughest description, neither exactly Chinese nor English, 
but something between the two. Our bed -rooms were 
miserably cold : often, in the mornings, we would find 
ourselves drenched in bed with the rain ; and if snow 
fell, it was blown through the windows and formed 
wreaths''' on the floor. Nevertheless, the excitement 
produced on our minds by everything around us kept 
us in excellent health and in good spirits, and we made 
light of many things which in other circumstances we 
might have considered as hardships. Whenever we 
moved out of the house hundreds of people crowded the 
streets, and followed in our wake, as anxious to catch a 
glimpse of us as the crowds in London are to see the 
Queen. Every door and window was crammed with 
men, women, and children, who gazed upon us with a 
kind of stupid wonder, as if we had been inhabitants of 
the moon, and not the ordinary sons of earth. The 
children more particularly looked upon us with a kind of 
fear and dread, doubtless implanted in their young minds 
by their parents, who had less or more of the same 
feelings themselves. The name we bore — Kwei~tsz, or 
devil's child — was also calculated to produce erroneous 
impressions, particularly on the minds of the young, and 
made them regard us with superstitious horror. In these 
times it was quite common for us to hear such expressions 
as the following : — " The devil's children are coming,'^ or 
" Come and see a devil's child and not unfrequently 
