others filling them, or, when filled, fastened, papered, and covered with matting, securing them firmly with ratans; others, finally, labelling them on the outer covering,—­the labels being printed with the name of the vessel, of the tea merchant, of the tea, and of the Canton forwarding-house, also with the initials of the purchaser, and the number of the lot.  These labels are printed rapidly, being cut by one set of hands to the proper size for the use of the others who stamp them.  All the types are carved in blocks of wood, and the whole formed into a frame; then, in a little space just large enough for work,—­for the printer has no immense establishment with signs on the outside of “Book and Job Printing,”—­a Chinaman will sit down, snatch up a paper in one hand, and stamp it instantly with the wooden block letters, moistened with the coloring mixture used in printing.

When the teas are fairly ready to be conveyed to the ships, heavy cargo-boats are moored at the foot of the hong, their crews prepare for the chop, and the coolies within the hong stand ready to carry the chests.  Every box is properly weighed, papered, and bound with split ratan, the bill of the purchase has gone duly authenticated to the foreign factory, and the teas bid farewell to their native soil.  The word is given, and each cooly, placing his two chests in the ropes swinging from his shoulder-bar, lifts them from the ground, and with a brisk walk conveys them on board the chop-boat, where they are carefully stowed away.  As they are carried out of the hong, a fellow stands ready, and, as if about to stab the packages, thrusts at each one two sharp sticks with red ends, leaving them jammed between the ratan and the tea-box.  One of these sticks is taken out when the chest leaves the chop-boat, and the other when it reaches the deck of the vessel; and as soon as one hundred chests are passed into the ship, the sticks are counted and thus serve as tallies.  Should the two bundles not correspond, a chest is missing somewhere, and woe betide the blunderer!

In the busy season the chop-boats are seen pushing down the river with every favorable tide.  As for pushing against the tide, no Chinaman ever thinks of such a thing, unless absolutely compelled, the value of time being quite unknown in China.  Coolly anchoring as soon as the tide is adverse, the crew fall to playing cards until it is time to get under way again.  Nearly every chop-boat contains a whole family, father, mother, and children,—­sometimes an old grandparent, also, being included in the domestic circle,—­and all assist in working.  At the stern of the boat the wife has a little cooking-apparatus, and prepares the cheap rice for the squad of eager gormandizers, who bolt it in huge quantities without fear of indigestion.  The family sit down to their repast on the deck; the men keep an eye to windward and a hand on the tiller; the mother knots the cord that goes around the baby’s waist into an iron