TUNG-CHOW. 
121 
burn in their sacrifices. Chairs and tables of varnished wood 
clumsy in form and materials, completed the furniture of the 
apartment. 
The smaller room was a kitchen, which did not display a very 
complicated apparatus, having only a square brick furnace sup- 
porting two large iron bowls, that served for baking, boiling, or 
any other similar purpose. 
The Chinese appeared to have confined their attempts at orna- 
ment to their yards, which contained plants of various species. 
The elegant Ipomcea quamoclet , trained on small frames of trellis 
work, was, from its frequent culture, obviously a favourite. The Be- 
gonia Evansiana *, Largerstrcemia indica, Hemorocallisjaponica , Punica 
granalum dwarfed, Cassia sophora , Nerium oleander , Lychnis coronata, 
Tradescantia cristata, were abundantly cultivated in pots, together 
with a species of Dianella, with purple flowers, of Hibiscus , and of 
Plumbago , which I could not determine. But cultivated and prized 
above all others, appeared the Nelumbium speciosum, the Lien-wha 
of the Chinese. This splendid flower, celebrated for its beauty by the 
Chinese poets, and ranked for its virtues among the plants which, ac- 
according to Chinese theology, enter into the beverage f of immortality, 
flourished in the greatest vigour in the gardens of Tung- Chow. It 
was raised in capacious vases of water, containing gold and silver 
fish, supported on stands a few feet from the ground. These were 
surrounded by steps of different elevation, supporting other plants 
mingled with artificial rocks, representing a hilly country and 
covered with diminutive houses, pagodas, and gardens. In this situ- 
ation the Nelumbium was certainly an object of exceeding beauty. Its 
tulip-like blossoms of many petals tinted with the most delicate 
pink, hung over its fan-like leaves, floated on the surface of the 
water, or rising on long footstalks of unequal height, bent them 
# Plantes raves. f Memoires concernant les Chinois, tom. iii 437. 
R 
