literally ran for joy into the evidently populous set- | tlement. Two chiefs met us, and each grasping a hand of the white visitors, led us to a council-house at the near end of Manumanu, facing the long street. We sat on the verandah, and gazed upon the goodnatured crowd that soon filled the street. The only weapons we saw were a couple of arrows in the hands of a little boy. On asking for water, the lad, misunderstanding the request, offered us the arrows, to the no small amusement of the bystanders, who readily supplied us with a couple of cocoa-nuts to drink.

Manumanu contains ninety-four houses, built on high stakes, and for the most part two-storied. You ascend by a ladder from the clean street to a wide verandak, where several members of the family are sure to be sitting. A narrow doorway introduces the visitor to the cooking and eating apartment, round the sides of which are hung stone adzes, women's girdles, fishing-nets and hooks. A second exterior and more slender flight of steps from the first verandah conducts to the second story, which is also provided with a narrow verandah. This is the sleeping apartment of the household. In some cases duplicate houses were built almost touching each other, apparently to accommodate polygamists. Our impression was that only two or three families occupies a single dwelling. We estimated the population of Manumanu at 900 or 1,000. Everything was scrupulously clean. Swords of the saw-fish were in several instances suspended in front of their houses as ornaments.

We at first thought the women wore some tasteful close-fitting lace-like garment; but it proved to be merely the exquisitely beautiful tattooing with which they were covered. They wear a neat petticoat of leaves reaching from the waist to the knees. The men are but slightly tattooed on their faces and necks, exactly reversing what we had seen in Polynesia. The girdle of the men is made of the paper mulberry, but is a mere pretence for a covering.

Perfect confidence was established between these natives and their visitors. They allowed us to wander about the village, to enter their dwellings, and to touch whatever we liked. Little presents were made to please them. Mrs. W.'s dress excited a great deal of interest. One woman pertinaciously insisted upon her exchanging her wedding-ring for a musselshell!

NATIVE POTTERY AND IMPLEMENTS.

The grand occupation of the women of this village is the manufacture of pottery. With great interest we watched the entire process, from the mixing of two kinds of clay to the slow baking of the ware, which had been for some days hardening in the sun. The fine sand of the river enables them to turn out first-class pottery. The near approach of the rainy

not appear to have seen service; it would form but a poor defence against the terrible arrows of Mauat warriors. Their bows are made of wood, not of bamboo, as on the south-west coast, and are very inferior articles.

The complexion of these people is nearly the same as that of the eastern South Sea islanders. In stature and physical strength they are far inferior; their features are good, and the expression agreeable. The men tie up their hair so as to form a mop or chignon. Over the forehead are worn head-dresses of red and white cockatoo feathers. A white shell is often worn on the forehead. Nose jewels are inserted in the septum of males, producing a ludicrous effect. The sailors nick-named these nasal ornaments "sprit-sail yards."

The men are addicted to chewing the betel-nut. We purchased several prettily ornamented flasks, containing chunam, or coral lime, used with it. This accounts for the unpleasant discoloration of their teeth. In Mauat we saw no trace whatever of this practice. A few Redscar natives use tobacco, but do not seem to care much about it.

We saw no iron implements in the hands of these natives; indeed, they did not even seem acquainted with the use of iron. Some jade adzes were purchased with red cloth. With these rough tools they dub out long planks thirty-eight inches in width! The adzes were fastened to the handles with strips of rattan-not, as in Eastern Polynesia, with sinnet.

Neatly netted baskets were hung from the necks of both sexes as a repository for valuables, worn sometimes in frout, sometimes behind.

Hogs of a peculiarly shaggy kind (Sus papuensis) abounded. One of our party was attacked by an immense boar. A strange wail, which we imagined to proceed from frightened women and children, proved to be the combined howling of all the dingoes in the neighbourhood at the first sight of strangers. The dingo cannot bark. The dingo of Australia is doubtless derived from New Guinea, being found in all the intervening islands.

We came upon a matron preparing dinner. She seemed in no degree disturbed by our curiosity, nor did she invite us to taste the repast, which consisted of a quantity of yams and half a pig. A lizard, upwards of four feet in length, was roasting on the live coals. It was cooked entire-claws, tail, and entrails!

THE MANDARIN'S DAUGHTER.

A STORY OF THE CHINESE GREAT REBELLION, AND THE (( EVER-VICTORIOUS ARMY."

CHAPTER XXXVI.-MASSACRE OF THE TAIPING CHIEFS.

/HILST I was reporting my proceedings at

cooking-pots and water-jars is an important occupation amongst the sea-board natives of this part of New Guinea.

One of our party wishing to get a specimen of the clays used, politely requested permission to retain some bits picked up out of the wooden trough in which the mixing and kneading were done. The elderly woman to whom it belonged indignantly refused, so utterly deficient are these people in the graceful courtesy natural to all the Eastern Pacific islanders.

In one house we saw a wooden shield, which did

great crowd which was assembling near at hand, and we went towards it to see what was the matter. We had not gone far when a great force of Imperialist soldiery went rushing through the gate into the city, firing off their muskets in the air, and yelling as they usually do when they enter a vacated stockade. On reaching the camp Gordon remonstrated with the mandarins and soldiers, as their conduct was calcu lated to frighten the rebels and cause them to create a disturbance. After a few minutes General Ching appeared on the scene, looking pale and agitate 1.

CHAPTER XXXVII.-GRAND FESTIVAL AT SHANGHAI AMONG THE SOOCHOW REFUGEES.

GREAT were the rejoicings of the refugees in Shanghai city and settlement at the surrender of Soochow, for they had chiefly come from that town and its neighbourhood, and their satisfaction took a tangible shape in contributions from their hoards of sycee silver, to cover the expenses of an appropriate festival on the occasion. A day was set aside for that purpose and kept as a general holiday, First we went to the city temple, and mingled with the crowd collected in the courtyard and on the steps leading to the entrance. Here were gathered together examples of all the itinerant hucksters, traders, and others that characterise street-life in China. Some of these were similar to what may be seen in England, such as cake and fruit vendors, but there were others which belong peculiarly to that strange country. Of these, the inost numerous were the peripatetic barbers, who shave the heads of their customers, and dress their hair in the open streets when the weather is fair, or beneath the eaves of the houses when it rains, or under the protection of a large bamboo umbrella. When it is considered that there are probably not less than one hundred and fifty millions of male heads throughout the empire requiring a weekly tonsorial manipulation, some idea may be formed of the immense number who follow this trade. As the Taiping revolution had for one of its chief objects the discontinuance of shaving the head, the barbers were among its most inveterate opponents, for if it had succeeded their occupation would have been gone. Besides vendors of wares and tradesmen, there were diviners, who told fortunes by tossing up the "sticks of fate" from a kind of dice-box. The dupes gathered for themselves, or their parents, wives, or children, what would befall them in the dark future. Then there was a physiognomist who studied the characters of his customers by their features, to which he added a little fortune-telling by means of palmistry, the principles being defined in a book on these subjects amply illustrated. In a quiet corner of the spacious courtyard we came upon an itinerant story-teller, who was surrounded by a group of eager listeners while he related a sensational story, in which demons and fairies controlled the fates of the principal persons in the tale. He himself had a hobgoblin appearance, being dwarfish, with a large head, and a voice hollow and rough from constant speaking in the open air. Of a superior character was a peripatetic expounder of the books of Confucius, holding forth in an adjacent temple dedicated to that sage and lawgiver. Here the reader stood on an elevated rostrum, and delivered short sentences in a grave tone of voice to an attentive audience seated on forms, the hall being similar to an ordinary lecture-room in this country.

As the day advanced the crowds at these places moved away along the streets leading to the famous Shanghai gardens, where the grand show of the day. was to assemble, and afterwards march in procession through the city and settlement. We followed the throng, and after some crushing got within their precincts. Here all was stir and bustle, with an endless rattling of discordant sounds from musical instruments, every now and then varied by a discharge of fire-crackers and bombs. Meng-kee, who was well acquainted with the mazes of these gardens,

led the way to a rocky eminence in a central position, from which we could see all that was going on without inconvenience.

This hill was entirely artificial, formed by a pile of stones so varied in their disposition that they seemed like rocks upheaved through the level land around, whereas every stone had been brought from many miles distant. Intricate paths wound round it in all directions, with caves here and there formed by boulders, as if worn out by time and the elements, and rough-hewn seats at various stages of the ascent, for people to sit down and admire the varying landscape. A general view of the gardens, and of the surrounding city, with the forest of masts from a thousand junks moored in the Wong-poo river, was obtained from the summit.

The scene in the foreground was eminently picturesque. Numerous pavilions on rocky heights and in small lakes were scattered about, presenting examples of nature and art combined that pleased the artistic eye with their quaintness of design. Of these, the largest stood in the central part of a serpentine lake, having only one approach by a zigzag bridge. Great care and skill had been expended on the carving of the pillars that supported its double roof with beautifully carved cornices.

At first it was impossible to understand the nature of the festival, but at length, when the performers were brought into something like order, they marched in procession out of the gardens through the principal gate, where the spectators on the rocky eminence had a good view of them.

The procession was headed by flag-bearers carrying the usual banners and emblematical tableaux that form the staple of such performances. Among the latter was an English horse bedizened with a magnificently embroidered covering, and led by two gaily-dressed ostlers. Several ponies followed, on one of which rode a very diminutive youth dressed up as a mandarin in official robes. On another was a small boy made up for that uncomfortable blackfaced and white-eyed character which usually represents the evil Chinese genius on the stage, and peculiarly diabolical he certainly looked. Then came a number of girls dressed in garments of the brightest hue, with their faces painted with colours no less brilliant. They rode astride on their ponies, and some carried paint boxes, with looking-glasses attached, from which they took dabs of colours and put them on their faces from time to time. One part of the procession consisted of a number of half-naked children, another of equally lightly-clad men, and an imposing effect was produced by a goodly number of mandarins in purple robes with bright gilded shields. These were common men hired for the occasion, who seemed very happy in their imaginary dignity, though one could see that their gait lacked the official strut, and, indeed, in one or two instances, had an affinity with the jaunty swing of the chairbearer, and suggested that if these mandarins were undressed the coolie would be revealed.

Between the different groups of equestrians and pedestrians, numerous gilded shrines having allegorical figures were borne aloft, with incense-sticks burning in front, and surrounded by all kinds of savoury viands and confections. The dresses of the ladies and the housings of the ponies seemed to produce a great sensation, especially where their attendants carried richly-embroidered canopies of crimson cloth on bamboos above their heads. But the

romantic display was somewhat detracted from by some of the fair damsels carrying foreign umbrellas, the utilitarian simplicity of which jarred with the oriental magnificence displayed. The music, it is needless to state, was of the usual discordant and noisy description.

The great feature of the procession came last: this was the "Kin-loong," or Golden Dragon, the emblem of all that is ancient and great in the history and dynasties of the empire. It is appropriated to whatever belongs to or issues from the "Dragon's Seat," as the imperial throne is designated in the decrees of the Government. A five-clawed dragon is embroidered on the emperor's court robes, often surrounds his edicts and the title-pages of books published by his authority, while dragons are inscribed on his banners. It is more than anything else the national coat-of-arms of the Celestial Empire, because it is personated by his Imperial Majesty, and no subject can employ it to designate anything belonging to him personally. Yet, as on this occasion, the fabulous creature was allowed to be publicly represented, as a token of loyalty to the reigning dynasty and hatred to the enemies of the Dragon

Throne.

The emblem carried in procession represented a monster of great magnitude, not less than one hundred and fifty feet long, with a head six feet in height, something like that of a camel, having the horns of a deer and the ears of a cow. The long body had a ridge of scales on the back, with the claws of a hawk. On each side of its mouth wero whiskers, and a long beard hung under the chin. A cloud of smoke proceeded from its mouth, which sometimes changed into fire, while fireworks issued from the nostrils. Altogether it was a most elaborately got-up affair, and was a striking evidence of the value the Chinese attach to old customs, the origin of which are hid in the antiquity of their mythology.

The festival did not end by daylight. When the chief inhabitants had partaken of the feast that had been prepared for them, they embarked on the river, on board gaily-decorated barges, illuminated with a The night profusion of lanterns inside and out. was still and weather fine, allowing the brilliant maritime procession to be seen to the best advantage. When it proceeded down the Wong-poo there were several long dragon-boats in the wake, constructed so as to imitate the form of that mythological creature, from whose mouths, eyes, and nostrils were emitted jets of smoke and fire. But what rendered the scene most brilliant were the fireworks discharged from these boats-not into the air as with us, but into the water, which, instead of lessening their brilliancy, seemed to increase it. This pyrotechnic display lasted for some time, during which the procession of boats kept moving up and down, with its fiery train hissing and sputtering on the water, giving a forcible representation of the monstrous "Golden Dragon which the superstition of the Chinese places among the deified protectors of their country and legitimate monarch.

PRINCE KUNG.

In our story of "The Mandarin's Daughter," Prince Kung, whose likeness is now inserted, figures as a prominent personage in the pacific ratification of the treaty at Peking, which concluded the last war be

called, the Tsoong-le Yamoon. That is a supplementary Board to the six great Boards forming the Government of China, and was established at the close of the last war in 1860, as a necessary adjunct to keep the diplomatic correspondence with foreign On all occaembassies distinct from native affairs.

sions that resident ministers or new ambassadors requested interviews with the Prince, these have been freely granted, and the greatest courtesy shown to them, with a desire on his part to discuss questions at issue as liberally as the peculiar laws and customs of China would permit. As unele to the youthful Emperor, Toong Che, he naturally possesses considerable influence in the Court of Peking; and it is the general conviction of foreigners in China, that as long as he holds his present post, there is little fear of hostilities again breaking out, although the country is now better prepared for war than formerly, having formed the nucleus of a steam navy and disciplined army in the interval.

mineral residuum that remains after the more volatile substances have been dispersed by fire. The thing looks very well on paper and in theory, but will certainly never become more than theory in this country, with all the associations connected with "Christian burial."

It is only fair to say that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is in no way affected by the proposal, for we know that matter is indestructible, and if the resurrection implies a restoration of atoms present at death, this can be as easily done after dispersion by "cremation" as after "humation."

How the practice is effected in the East we see in the painful and repulsive report of the cremation of Mr. Narayan Wassodeo, given in the Times of India," August 6th, 1874.

The remains of the Hon. Narayan Wassodeo, member of the Legislative Council of Bombay, whose lamented death through the fall of a building was reported by telegraph, were solemnly cremated on the burning-ground at Sonapore. The body was placed, after it was recovered from under the ruins, on the floor of a large apartment at the rear of one of the wings of the house, and the female members of the family, seating themselves around it, gave themselves up to uncontrollable grief. The unhappy widow was overwhelmed by the dreadful calamity which had befallen her. A great number of the leading members of the European and various native communities called and took a last look at the remains as they lay covered with a white robe, the lower part of the face being alone exposed. It was at first intended to perform the last offices on the ground adjacent to the temple at Walkeshwar, but ultimately it was considered that the burning ground at Sonapore would be a more appropriate scene, for there Mr. Narayan had, at considerable cost, erected a place of shelter for mourners, planted trees, and in other ways shown his munificence. The procession started about 7 P.M. The bier, composed of two long pieces of bamboo with a couple of cross-pieces, and covered with a rich white shawl, was upheld by the deceased's eldest brother and three of his most intimate friends and relatives-Mr. Rugunath Narayan, Mr. Shantaram Narayan, and Dr. Shantaram Withul. The sacred fire, which had been kindled with due coremonies at the house, was carried in front in a brazen vessel by the deceased's son. The funeral was largely attended not only by members of his own caste, but by those of other castes and denominations. When the procession reached Sonapore, the bier was placed on the ground while the pyre was being constructed. Men with short crowbars made six holes in the earth, and in each of these was placed a rough piece of timber about four or five feet high. The posts, ranged two and two, were about a yard distant from each other. Three logs about six feet long each were placed on pieces of wood between each pair of uprights, so as to allow a free draught under the whole. A number of smaller logs were placed on these large ones, and were covered with sandal-wood, which made a sort of bed for the reception of the body. While this was being done, a number of torches of sandal-wood were being carefully ignited by the deceased's son at the sacred fire which he had brought with him for the purpose. Prayers were said while the ignition was in progress. All being ready, the bier was brought to the side of the pyre, and the body was

divested of all coverings except a cloth around the loins. It was then lifted on to the bier, which was by this time between three and four feet high. The upright posts confined the body on either side, and prevented the possibility of its rolling off. Small blocks of sandal-wood of various lengths-from six inches to two feet--were placed lightly on the body. The deceased's son then took a brazen vessel full of water and carefully sprinkled a circle on the earth around the funeral pile. He next seized a brand from the sacred fire and applied it to some dried leaves or similar combustibles placed under the pyre. That did not set fire to the pile, however, and was not intended to be more than a compliance with the ceremonial; the brand was red, but not blazing, and a spark or two only fell from it. The relatives were then, as is usual in such cases, led away from the pyre by the friends around, so as to spare their feelings as much as possible. When they were taken a few yards off and their backs turned to the pyre, large logs similar to those at the base were placed over the body, which now became completely concealed-all but the feet, which were left exposed either by accident or design. The friends applied matches to the sandal-wood brands, and, when they blazed up, set fire to the combustibles. Owing doubtless to the dampness of the ground, and occasional drops of rain, it was a matter of some difficulty to get the mass to burn. Cocoanut oil was thrown on the wood, and screens were held by men so as to regulate the draught, and after a long interval the pyre blazed up fiercely. In three hours only a handful of ashes remained of him who was but that morning the influential leader of the Hindoo community, full of life and hope.

Varieties.

gives some useful practical hints on building materials, and HOUSE BUILDING. A correspondent of "Land and Water how to put them together. The first question in building a house is, shall it be of brick or stone? The arguments in favour of each are-1st, for brick-that it is cheaper, more fireproof (as was shown in the Chicago fire), and (as a rule) more easily procured. 2nd, for stone-that it looks better, and is more adapted for ornamental portions of the house, such as pillars, etc. And, first, as to expense. If you have a stone quarry on your estate, or can by any other means get your stone for nothing, the expense of quarrying and cutting it is about the same as the cost of bricks. The advantage of bricks being more fireproof is not much in the country, as the heat of one house burning would not be sufficient to crack its walls, if they were well and solidly made. In building a really good house, I think it is best to employ stone, it looks much better, and building his own house being a thing which a man seldom does I have not more than once in his life, he should do it well. spoken of stucco houses, for I do not suppose that any man prefers a sham to the genuine thing, or fancies he is living in a stone house, because half-an-inch of plaster is daubed over the bricks; besides, stucco houses, unless painted, have an unpleasant habit of becoming very dark all over in wet weather, and then drying in patches. Let your stone be cut into large square blocks, and whatever you do, don't build your house, as is sometimes done, of pieces of stone of all shapes, which give the general effect of a mud cottage enlarged. If money is any object to you, remember that the nearer the shape of your house is to a perfect square, the more room you will get for walls is twenty feet long, you will have eighty feet of wall to your money. For example, if it is a square, and each of the build, and each floor will contain 400 square feet. But if your house is oblong, two of the walls being each thirty feet long,