Chap. XVI. SILK-DISTRICTS— SUNG-KIANG-FOO. 275 
with shelves, placed one above another, from the ground 
to the roof of the house. The worms are kept and fed 
in round bamboo sieves, placed upon these shelves, so 
that any one of the sieves may be taken out and ex- 
amined at pleasure. The poor natives were greatly sur- 
prised when they saw a foreigner coming amongst them, 
and generally supposed that I intended to rob them of 
their silkworms. In all the villages where I V^ent to 
they uniformly denied that they had any feeding-room& 
— although the leaves and stems of the mulberry about 
their doors told a different tale ; and they never failed 
to direct me to go on to some other part of the country^ 
where they assured me I should find them. Before we 
parted, however, they generally gained confidence, and 
showed me their collections of worms, as well as their 
mode of managing them. 
After passing through the Hang-chow silk-district, 
and keeping on in an easterly direction, we reached, late 
in the evening, a large town named SuNG-KlANG-FOO, 
which is about 80 miles to the west of Shanghae, and 
stopped for the night under its ramparts. By daybreak 
the next morning we were again on our road, and reached 
Shanghae on the afternoon of the same day. Having 
taken up my abode in the house of my friend Mr. Mac- 
kenzie, I was surprised in going down stairs next morning 
to find one of my Chapoo acquaintances — the officer 
already mentioned— in close conversation with the Chi- 
nese servants ; but I now cared very little about the 
matter, knowing perfectly how the business must end. 
There was no doubt that the whole affair had been re- 
ported to the Taoutae, or head mandarin of Shanghae, 
