PEOPLE, LANGUAGES, AND EELIGIONS. 3T 
giaiice to the crown, before they can become such. In 
spite of this and other obstacles they prove themselveS’ 
to be a very shrewd, industrious people, and a valuable 
addition to the community. In some respects they are 
more valuable than the Coolies ; for not only do they 
rise in the scale of, society, but they marry Creole 
women (no Chinese women, or very few, having been 
brought with them), and settle down permanently in the 
country. They assume the European dress, adopt Euro- 
pean manners, and live in very respectable st}de. Some 
of their houses are their own property, being elegantly, 
not to say extravagantly, furnished. The Celestials are 
a pecidiar people in their own country; and though 
much of their peculiarity is lost by their residence here, 
stiU some of their peculiarities remaim The long plait 
of hair growing from the crown of the head is as sacredly 
preserved, and as carefully coiled round the head in 
Trmidad by the well-to-do Chinaman, as by his brother 
Chinaman in the Celestial Empire. It is difficult to 
find out why this appendage is so carefully guarded — 
but carefully preserved it is ; and distressing indeed is it 
to the poor unfortimate Chinese Avho is sent to gaol, and 
has to submit to the indignity of having his head 
shaved. Not that they are not accustomed to shaving 
their heads, for most of them shave the whole of their 
heads clean, with the exception of the sacred plait. 
They are, as a people, devoid of whiskers, and very few 
have either beard or moustache. Some of the higher 
class have the very long, thin moustache which is to be 
seen represented in the images of mandarins on view 
in tea-shop Avindows. 
The native dress of the Chinese has nothing pic- 
turesque about it ; short wide trousers of blue cotton, 
with a kind of short smock-frock of the same material, 
form the whole of the dress, croAvned, hoAvever, by a 
circular and conically-shaped hat, Avhich puzzles you to 
say Avhether it is most like one of Bruce’s soldiers’ 
targets, or a part of a bee-hive. They are in shape like 
