Wine, Tea And Sweet-Meats Were
Produced At Each House.
Their houses are very rude, considering their
ample means, and have earthen floors.
They have comfortable carriages,
and their gentle, sweet-mannered children were loaded with gold and
diamonds. In one house, a sweet little girl handed round the tea and
cake, and all, even to babies who can scarcely toddle across the floor,
came up and shook hands. A Chinese family impresses one by its extreme
orderliness, filial reverence being regarded as the basis of all the
virtues. The manners of these children are equally removed from shyness
and forwardness. They all wore crowns of dark red gold of very
beautiful workmanship, set with diamonds. When these girl-children are
twelve years old, they will, according to custom, be strictly secluded,
and will not be seen by any man but their father till the bridegroom
lifts the veil at the marriage ceremony.
After these visits, in which the "Capitans China," through the
interpreter, assured us of their perpetual and renewed satisfaction
with British rule, Mr. Hayward, the interpreter, and I, paid another
visit of a more leisurely kind to one of the Chinese gambling houses,
which, as usual, was crowded. At one end several barbers were at work.
A Chinaman is always being shaved, for he keeps his head and face quite
smooth, and never shaves himself. The shaving the head was originally a
sign of subjection imposed by the Tartar conquerors, but it is now so
completely the national custom that prisoners feel it a deep disgrace
when their hair is allowed to grow.
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