The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-02

seem to have been distinguished bJ
 uglinesG as we'll as sanctity.
 Quite as interesting in their way as
 those streets already described, are
 certain thoroughfares overlooking the
 water. The Pearl River, crowded with
 boats of many different shapes and
 sizes, some stationary, others moving
 is highly picturesque. Most conspicu-
 ous are the great Enthusiastically carved
 and painted junks, with high stern and
 big eyes staring on the bow, for, as the
 Chinese express it in jidgin English;
 Suppose not got eye, how can see?
 Suppose no can see, how can Walkee?
 Very showy, too, are the mandarins'
 houeeboats of dark, vanished wood
 made gay by floating flags and dangl-
 ing lanterns; the joss pidgin boats car
 ryiug decorated altars and long-robed
 attendant priests, their banners and
 lanterns always suitable in color to the
 special service held. On a day when
 prayers for the dead are recited these
 are blue and white, but if eone joss
 pidgin, to insure the happiness of
 newly married pair, is performed, al!
 are scarlet. On the famous flower boats,
 or floating restaurants, through the
 cabins wide doors one catches as they
 pass glimpse of elaborately embroider-
 ed hanging6, and beautifully dressed,
 paint bedaubed singsong girls, trained
 entertainers, who, together with the
 boat, are hired for the day or evening. In addition to these restaurants the riv-
 CT boasts plenty of hotels, which, how ever always remain anchored. These oT ,D ff tItgUll1prfs r.
 rive at night after o'clock, when the city gates are closed, they are not al- lowed to enter. Vast numbers of odd- looking craft bring native visitors from the interior to China's Paris, for as canals closely intersect the whole coun- try, while all roads are atroucious little travelling off land is done. Noticeable among this class are fast slipper boats, and others with immense copper-colored sails, looking when outspread like the wings of some gigantic butterfly.
 And from time to time shoots rapidly by long, narrow, sharpboWed revenue boat, bristling with spears and bikes, carrying on either side 8 row of shields painted with tigers, heads floating a yellow agn-hag, and roWed by fifty men. Fishing boats of many different kinds also pass, and duck-boats, on which big outstanding platforms house at night the quacking cargo.
 Then crowding both sides of the river as well as all adjacent creeks, are boats on which thousands of the poorer class es spend their lives These remaining permanently moored, form regular sheets; and it is easy to step from the I,t ,t,.t cgx. q to that of its next door nelghbor. The occupants of these aquatic homes argue that boat while cheaper to build than a house, Is quite as comfortable, pay9 1 no ground rent, and runs less risk of being burned or robbed. Many, indeed, most of them contain three generations | of a family, and the toilets of all, as i well as various other domestic opera tions, are publicly performed. |
 It rather astonishes one to find that 1 among these very poor people not only | do the men hire a barber, but all the | as we'll employ hairdresser | However, although this hairdressing job | fully one hour and a half, the | artist only demands few cents in re- turn for her services. and the elaborate hirsute construction vulgarly called -eapot when finished and coated with | vegetable gum, last week or more Then the chow-chow of these people, at east as regards quantity and variety, seems really rather luxurious. Each person has private bowl containing ice, and in the centre stand ten or welve others. free to all chop sticks, ind filled with bits of raw fish, boiled 'abbage. pickles and queer looking, messes.
 The babies on these boats being kept irmly strapped on the backs of their lders, run no danger of unpremeditated yaths but the little more pargee piecee hilo," or larger child, frequently falls All, however, have by way f life preserver a large gourd tied to he jacket, while always at hand lies ong hook kept for fishing them out of he water.
 To provide for the wants of all the oats on the river, innumerable sam ans fly busily back and forth. Some He'd with flowers look particularly retty, their cIoseset rivals being those fled high vegetables and such fruits as ustard apples, iychees ,Buddha's ands, persimmons, deep red mandarin ranges, pale yellow coolie oranges. ,quots and cumquots. Others carry sh meat cooking utensils, charcoal, indling wood, few being fitted up as itchens, in which chow w-chow is cooked } order
 It has been shown that the Pearl is y no means a dull stream, and in addi- on to all the liveliness already men, oned ther goes much joss pidgin in olving the display of special decora- ons, the beating of drums, clashing of ymbals, exploding of firecrackers and IT about two weeks in summer, east g upon the waters of enormous duan- ties of lighted joss papers, At New ear time all craft, even the humblest e adorned by red lucky papers and ,rays of artificial flowers made of ass or golden flowers, nor does any le boat fail to observe the feast of nterns, the large junks, flower boats, Jating hotels, and mandarins' house ,ats making an amazing display of ntorns of all shopes and sizes
 But the Pearls gayest day Is the fifth
 the fifth month, about June 15 when @ Dragon festival occurs. From 10 clock in the morning until 4 In the ternoon, long narrow boats rowed by Ety men race up and down the river.