TUNG-CHOW. 117 
those of Europe. The medicines vended in them appeared to be 
all from the vegetable kingdom. 
The public houses were large open sheds, fitted up with tables 
and benches, and afforded the means of gambling and drinking to 
the lower class of the Chinese ; and were generally filled with 
players at dominos or cards, who seemed to enter with intense 
earnestness into their game. The cards were small pieces of paste- 
board, about two filches in length and half an inch in width, having 
black and red characters painted upon them. The beverage most 
largely partaken of in these houses was tea and wine; but sam-tchoo 
was also drunk. This liquor, which, from the quantity we met 
with in China, must be in general use, more resembles alcohol in 
flavour and strength than any other spirit with which I am ac- 
quainted. It sometimes, indeed, has a smoky flavour, resembling 
that of whiskey. It is distilled from rice or millet, and flavoured, 
the Chinese said, by the seeds of the bamboo. The wine, according 
to De Guignes *, is nothing more than water in which rice or millet 
has been fermented. All the guests in these houses were smoking 
from pipes of various length, from two to five feet, formed of the 
young and slender twigs of bamboo, fitted with bowls of white 
copper, about the size of a thimble. 
Having seen so many people on the banks of the Pei-ho ex- 
hibiting all the exterior marks of sordid poverty, we felt no surprise 
that many of them should be driven to mendicity for the means of 
existence. At Tung-Chow we met with the first of the many proofs 
which occurred to ns in China, that it extensively prevails in that 
country. Beggars frequented the suburbs, some of whom were 
miserable objects of deformity, and all exhibited the marks of 
extreme penury. One man, who occasionally crossed my path, 
was withered in his thighs and legs, which he writhed about for the 
purpose of extorting charity. Those who were not prevented by 
* Voyage a Peking, tom. ii. p.278. 
