108 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March, 
[COPYKIGUT SECURED.] 
R E E T IN CANTO N. —Drawn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
SCENE IN A ST 
all their weighing with steelyards; though the instru¬ 
ment is seldom of steel, hut usually of wood; or, if 
for weighing small things, it is made of ivory or hone. 
The houses are not very large, or very high—hardly ev¬ 
er more than two stories. They are built usually of pale- 
blue briclt or stone, and in some places of wood. The 
roofs are all curved. We never see any that are flat or 
sloping, and they are covered with tiles, such as you 
may have seen on some of the old houses in New York, 
or at Albany or Schenectady, brought over from Hol¬ 
land by the Dutch settlers before the Revolutionary war. 
The Chinese are very fond of adorning their houses 
with grotesque figures of dragons, with a head shaped 
like that of a horse, with great goggle eyes, a mouth wide 
open, and a tongue like a dart 1 The body is part horse 
and part lizard, ending in a long, tapering, arrow-shaped 
tail. It is covered with scales, and has wings like an 
eagle’s. It has four legs with claws, like a turtle’s. It is 
the Imperial emblem on the flag of the Empire, just as the 
eagle is the emblem of the United States, or the lion and 
unicorn that of England, or the elephant that of Siam. 
Wherever we look, we see representations of dragons 
—sitting on the ridge-pole of the houses, on the corners 
of the roofs, or over the windows. They glare at us 
from beneath the eaves ; open their mouths from above 
the door-ways; thrust out their tongues at us from the 
tops of pillars and posts. Every shop-keeper displays a 
flag or banner of red, green, crimson, blue, yellow, or 
purple, with a dragon upon it; and so as we look along 
the narrow streets, we see bright colors everywhere, and 
dragons everywhere, and men hurrying everywhere, and 
the sensation is so strange that we can hardly tell 
whether we are in this world or whether we have been 
transported to one of the planets 1 Every house has a 
lantern hanging over the door, and sometimes there are 
three or four of them, as large as barrels 1 They have 
light rattan or bamboo frames covered with oiled silk, 
on which we sec a great dragon spitting thunderbolts 1 
The houses have no fireplaces, furnaces, or stoves, and 
the doors and windows do not shut so closely as in our 
own houses. In Canton the winters are not very severe, 
though there are some cold days. If a cold day comes, 
they put on more clothing. Up among the hills in the 
interior, and in Northern China, a foot of snow some¬ 
times falls, but even there they have no fireplaces. Fuel 
is scarce. They gather a few sticks, build a fire on a 
hearth in the centre of the room ; and then at night, all 
the family—father, mother, and children, roll themselves 
in their blankets and lie down on the warm bricks. 
I am confident that you cannot guess what sort of pil¬ 
lows they have_ “Feathers ?—No. “Straw?" —No. 
Try again_“ Leaves ?"—You have not hit it. They use 
a wooden block, and think it a great deal better than a 
bag filled with feathers. Every Chinaman, when he is 
traveling, carries his wooden pillow with him. 
In traveling around the world, I have slept many a 
night on the soft side of a white oak plank with a piece 
of the same for a pillow, and one don’t mind it much 
when he gets used to it. If any of you want to know 
how the Chinese sleep on a cold night, you may easily 
find out by wrapping yourself in a blanket and lying 
down on the hearth with a stick of wood for a pillow. 
One night will satisfy your curiosity. In summer, the 
Chinese sleep on bamboo couches or rattan settees, which 
are quite comfortable. They have very nice easy chairs, 
made of rattan. Their tables and stools are richly carv¬ 
ed. They have teacups and bowls almost as thin as egg 
shells, so delicate, that you must handle them with great 
care. They have beautiful and costly vases, all covered 
over with Chinese scenes of men and women in the tea 
gardens, gathering and drinking tea ; of mandarins be¬ 
ing carried in sedans, with crimson umbrellas borne be¬ 
fore them; with men beating gongs and girls playing on 
guitars; with pictures of green fields and shady groves, 
birds of Paradise and peacocks. 
The floors in the houses of wealthy Chinamen are of 
porcelain—red, white, blue, and green—with landscapes 
painted upon them, each piece being painted before the 
clay is burned in the kiln, where their tiles arc manufac¬ 
tured. The Chinese are far ahead of any other nation in 
the manufacture of porcelain. Three thousand years ago, 
they had just such teacups as we see in their houses to¬ 
day. If you were to go to Egypt and dig among the old 
mummies, which were laid away in the tombs at Thebes 
when Joseph was ruler of Egypt, you would find such 
porcelain as is now made in the potteries.of China. 
The door of a Chinese house is almost always open 
during the day, and as we look in, we see beautiful silken 
screens embroidered with delicate floss—the work of the 
girls and young ladies who have nothing else to do. 
Upon the walls are paintings of birds with beautiful 
plumage, butterflies with gorgeous wings, and flowers of 
most delicate tints ; for, though a Chinese artist in his 
attempts to paint a landscape, gets men and women, hills 
and valleys, houses and trees, all mixed up, so that we 
cannot tell which is which or what is what, because ho 
docs not understand the rules of perspective in drawing— 
yet, he can produce beautiful and brilliant colors, and 
paint charming pictures of birds and butterflies. 
We have hardly got started on our ramble through the 
old city, but have seen so much that we must stop and 
think it over. We are apt to road too fast, and too much 
at once, as well as cat too fast, and the mind as well as 
the stomach wants time to digest its food. But before 
we get through our stroll, through the narrow streets, we 
shall see many things to laugh at, and I dare say, we 
shall exclaim again and again, what a queer people 1 
Answers to IPr-oThlenaass asa«l IPcsxzIes. 
We are always glad to receive rebuses and puzzles from 
our friends, but the answers should accompany them. 
No. 370.—A foul proceeding with a beacon fire.—A fowl 
proceeding with a beak on fire. The following have sent 
correct answers. C. II. McCartney, W. J. Bishop, Frank 
M. Ilall, J. R. Kaufman, R. A. Baker, Jr.. Mary Hil¬ 
ton, Chas. Roberts, Julia A. Green, Clarence Dtinster. 
