BESIDENTS, SHOPS, ETC . 
239 
serve up a meal of sli ell-fish, rice, and vegetables for 
a few cash ; while coolies, boatmen, and others, wait- 
ing to be hired, are everywhere to be met with. 
Here are dentists, letter-writers, fortune-tellers, 
and hawkers of odds and ends, in all directions ; 
while the barbers have plenty to do shaving heads 
and cleaning ears; water-carriers, bearers of sedan- 
chairs, coming and going in all directions, dressed in 
their peculiar national costume, with their long tails 
either wound about their heads or trailing down 
behind. The streets of Hong Kong offer a thousand 
reflections to those who have never been brought in 
contact with the celestial race. 
The restaurants, grog-shops, tea-houses, and gam- 
bling saloons are very numerous, and under strict 
surveillance of the police ; but what usually at first 
arrests the attention of the stranger are the numerous 
little niches along the street sacred to Joss, where at 
certain hours are burnt strips of coloured paper and 
scented sticks, for some mysterious rite known only 
to those strange people. To see them at their chow- 
chow is of itself a treat, for it is all done openly in 
their shops ; they have no glass fronts to them, as 
we are accustomed to see in most European cities. 
They have the character of being most patient in 
poverty, and if ill-luck befalls them, they will live on 
rice alone and suffer without murmuring. A dis- 
orderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one scarcely 
exists ; so long as he has strength to use his hands, 
