Had it not been for the uproarious chorus of "Slay the foreigner!" the tune to which we habitually walked about in remote parts of Hupeh Province, the shops of Itu looked rather inviting. There were beautiful sheep-skins in great profusion; and even in passing I was struck by the delicate beauty of some of the fox-skins. Women's embroidered petticoats were also hanging up for sale; but this was probably a bad New Year's sign. In one of the temples at Itu report says there is an inscription in European characters; but the hooting crowd did not predispose us to research, the less so as over all down fell the silent snow, in the midst of which stalked the most formidable beggar I have ever yet seen, stripped to the waist, covered with skin disease, his face plastered with mud of a livid green hue, his hair wild, and his eyes fierce and shining.
How comfortable the familiar house-boat looks, after one of these raids upon the shore, with luncheon on the table, and the armchairs all equally inviting! But we were stoned at Ichang with no pleasant house-boat to make tracks to; and, what is worse, one of the party wounded, which was a bad precedent, to say the least of it. And we were met by a French gentleman, who said, "I was stoned for a whole quarter of an hour yesterday." It seemed to him, as it did to us, that these little breaches of the peace, acquiesced in, might easily lead to serious consequences. The cry of "Slay the foreigner!" was a novelty that year. It has become very common since then.
But even without stoning, what a business it is shopping in a Chinese city! If you go to a shop, and begin looking at things and asking prices as you might in Europe, all the rabble of the street pours in after you. You cannot make yourself heard, you cannot breathe, you cannot see for the crowd, till the poor shopkeeper by his imploring gestures at last succeeds in making you go away before his shop is sacked, or at least half the things in it broken. The proper way is to send to the shop. Then a young shopman comes, very chirpy and self-satisfied, with a quantity of goods, but very likely nothing that you quite fancy. Then he asks you to tell him what you want exactly. Do you want brocade, or—or——Here follow names of silks you never heard of, and never consciously saw. Do you want to make yourself a skirt or a jacket? What!—neither! And do you not want a whole piece of the silk either? He packs up his goods and goes off. Then you decide to do the next most right thing—are carried to his shop in a sedan-chair, plumped down at the door of it, and glide into it and through into the sitting-room behind with wonderful celerity. The troubled shopkeeper bars one or two gates behind you, and the curious crowd is shut out. You sit down in peace, among round wooden columns, upon one of the straight-backed chairs beside a little black table. All is tranquil. Tea is brought. A pipe is offered. No one is in a hurry to serve you. And when you begin to explain what you want, they treat you like a silly sort of crazy creature that must be humoured, and somehow induced to go away. If, however, you have the good sense to begin by making one or two somewhat important purchases, everything and everybody in the shop will be at your service. The Chinese like buyers. But they object altogether to pricing after the American fashion.
STONE ANIMALS AT GENERAL'S GRAVE. A PEASANT SEATED ON ONE WITH STRAW HAT.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.
There is not much more to be bought in Chungking than in Ichang; but there are bed-spreads of deep indigo-blue cotton, with an elaborate pattern traced out on them in a kind of plaster before they are dyed, which consequently become whiter each time the cloth is washed, and which do well for tablecloths. And there are felt rugs, which have been treated in the same way—the whole pattern traced by hand, though, and then the rug dipped in a bright scarlet. Even in Chungking we never can decide whether these rugs look handsome or the reverse. But in the frontier town of Tibet, in the Roman Catholic Bishop's palace, I thought one looked magnificent upon the floor. There are embroideries, of course, to be bought—there are always embroideries all over China. And there are wonderful straw hats from Chengtu, two yards in circumference; and with the straw braid so fine in the centre of the crown, that it has all to be sewn together standing edgewise, not flat, as is usual with hats.
ENTRANCE TO FAIRIES' TEMPLE, CHUNGKING.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.