73 
PRESENT FOR THE “ ESUNG.” 
bottom, where pumpkins, melons, rice, peas, beans, 
grouhcl-nuts, and sweet potatoes form vast vegetable 
gardens. The terraced sides of the more barren hills 
are planted with the ookm or olive, the li-chee and 
the peach. The villagers are harmless, but now 
and then get into trouble for supposed insults to the 
British hag, but what then ? — “ Every day is not a 
Feast of Lanterns.” 
Under the shade of the dark-leaved firtrees, 
where repose the dead of the mild, intelligent 
Parsees, I loved to sit upon a gravestone and feast 
on the cool, pink hesh of water melons. While I 
was thus regaling myself on one occasion, a brown, 
pig-tailed, bare-legged urchin came panting, almost 
breathless, up the hill. He bore a home-made 
bamboo-box, to which a crumpled leaf served for a 
cork. This he eagerly withdrew as he approached 
me, and revealed the head of a large yellow centi- 
pede, whose unpleasant body seemed very much 
inclined to follow. This entomological capture, 
offered with a smile of conscious pride, was a 
present for the Esung.” These village urchms 
