The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1895-11-09

merely beginning to crumble, some are
waste places with broken suggestions Of
what they were, and some have been
invaded by farmers and by the populace,
with the result that you see portions OF the
once grand arch set in a nearby bridge or
used as steps to water-side tea-house.
A CHINESE CITY.
Puinsan lies at the end of spur of the
famed Grand Canal, which is, next to the
Great Wall, the noblest work Of the
Chinese Pagodas are not common in
China You do not see one in every day
of travel, so [ remember that one is on
the lone mountain that dominates the ap-
proach to the city. The outside town,
such as lies by every gate to every city, is
a place where a painter could spend a year
to better advantage than in most painters
resorts in southern Europe Rows Of
white walls, heavily rooted with black
tiles, face the water. The corners of all
the roofs are turned up, and some have
double corners. A few roofs, no less pict-
uresque, are of gray thatch, and few
walls are black or gray or blue, or even
dark red. Fancy the gorgeousness of the
scene, with the people crowding there in
new blues and faded blues! Bamboo bal
comics push out to the water edge and
carry idle women and men, in pretty
clothes, looking at us. The open shops
disclose workmen making shoes or cof-
fins or cooking the wonderful bean curd-
foundation to hundred dishes. As
the heart of the place is reached it be-
comes picturesque beyond description.
High stone walls shut in the water, and
on these rise houses of white staff, with
cumbrous jet roofs, and the most ornate,
the most fanciful windows, paned with
glossy inside scales of oyster shells.
Stone steps lead down to the water, and
each bears a woman washing clothes or
rinsing lacquered wooden pots. SunfOw
ers and pumpkin vines in bloom peep
over the walls of the houses, and beside
the walls of the stream are innumerable
boats. tied to carved dragons heads, crabs,
grotesque faces, and pretty carvings of
many sorts cut in the granite. At all the
doorways are tall and often handsome men
in long silk coats and silken half -breeches
bound tight around their ankles At the
windows are the nd-faced, full-lipped
women. On and on we float. And pres
emily we discover the long low walls Of
Quinsan, made ever famous by the valor
of General Gordon Under the intermina-
BILE low walls of what we call Roman brick
are plantations of sunfowers. and then
more white and black houses. They face
another tumble of boats of every fashion,
from the stately cargo and chop boats to
the rows of slender express boats, waiting,
like omnibuses, for passengers for 500 chow
and Shanghai The dyers shops hang
out long strips of blue cloth; bridge is
draped with colored stufs hung there to
dry, an enormous vermilion banner floats
from boat that, like hundreds beside it,
is orange toned beneath its sheen Of Ming
po varnish.
HOW A MANDARIN TRAVELS.
m-crash-zoom! sounded mighty
on earth is that 2 The boy Ananias
made answer: : That belong China man
dalin-look -seer' We looked-sa and
10 there came along an enormous boat,
with Il piano polish ali over it-long,
wide, low, with a great cabin in the middle,
and roof over each end. In front was
the gong, that sounded like the crack OF
doom, and some sailors lounging near it.
In the middle, behind plate glass framed
with carved and gilded arabesquerie, was
his excellency a governor, mustachioed,
with many women. They were his wife,
his mother, his number-two wife, and
their maids; the ladies in their best
exquisite as to their belewelled hair, their
compilations of thick white powder, and
their silks and satins. Next came the
kitchen-shed, with cook and a woman
among the pots and pans, while over the
stern and far away foated a big red ban
ner hung on sort of fishing rod. Crash
zoom-zOom went the mandarin, curving
grandly among the smaller fry, with a
dignity and a stateliness we finite folk know
not how to produce, except it be where
men bowl along ON elephants backs, or
sway in palanquins, or glide in such
barges as this.
OBLIGING THIEVES.
On the first night that we tied up at
the side of the canal we heard the muffled
drum aboard the police-boat of town
near by Its steady tum-tum, tum-tum-
tum seemed not to cease all night. The
boat was ten or fifteen ton sailing-ves
sci, carrying on its forward deck little
iron cannon, such as a pleasure yacht at
home might carry The sound of the
drum brought to my mind little Chinese
village of my acquaintance, where flag
at the end of the single street of shops
announced to the world that the inhab-
itants had banded themselves to keep or
der had hired a watchman, and now re-
quested all persons to assist in keeping the
peace.
The thieves of the locality are not
likely to ply their trade there, said a
missionary, because they will not like to
throw the watchman out OF work. 1t
would not be considered kindly or neigh
borly for the local thieves to operate in
his bailiwick According to the fixed
Chinese rule. the watchman will be paid
as long as there is no robbery, but if
robbery takes place he will have proved
himself useless. 1t will be with him as
it was with Ii Hung Chang, who, as
prime minister, was expected to keep the
country out of trouble. He waa caught
mapping when Japan declared war, apd
for that he lost his yellow jacket. Straight
to the top, the rule never varies. The
Emperor, in his capacity as the Son of