The gentlemen are proud of having one long nail on the little finger, to show that they do not labor like the poor, for if they did, the nail would break.  Men in China wear necklaces and use fans.

What foolish customs I have described.  Surely you will not think the Chinese a wise people, though very clever, as you will soon find.

Men and women dress in black, or in dark colors, such as blue and purple; the women sometimes dress in pink or green.  Great people dress in red, and the royal family in yellow.  When you see a person all in white, you may know he is in mourning.  A son dresses in white for three years after he has lost one of his parents.

HOUSES.—­See that lantern hanging over the gate.  The light is rather dim, because the sides are made of silk instead of glass.  What is written upon the lantern?  The master’s name.  The gateway leads into a court into which many rooms open.  There are not doors to all the rooms; to some there are only curtains.  Curtains are used instead of doors in many hot countries, because of their coolness; but the furniture of the Chinese rooms is quite different from the furniture of Turkish and Persian rooms.  The Chinese sit on chairs as we do, and have high tables like ours:  and they sleep on bedsteads, yet their beds are not like ours, for instead of a mattrass there is nothing but a mat.

Instead of pictures, the Chinese adorn their rooms with painted lanterns, and with pieces of white satin, on which sentences are written:  they have also book-cases and china jars.  But they have no fire-places, for they never need a fire to keep themselves warm:  the sun shining in at the south windows makes the rooms tolerably warm in winter; and in summer the weather is very hot.  The Chinese in winter put on one coat over the other till they feel warm enough.  In the north of China it is so cold in winter that the place where the bed stands (which is a recess in the wall) is heated by a furnace underneath, and the whole family sit there all day crowded together.

The Chinese houses have not so many stories as ours; in the towns there is one floor above the ground floor, but in the country there are no rooms up stairs.

It would amuse you to see a Chinese country house.  There is not one large house, but a number of small buildings like summer-houses, and long galleries running from one to another.  One of these summer-houses is in the middle of a pond, with a bridge leading to it.  In the pond there are gold and silver fish; for these beautiful fishes often kept in glass bowls in England, came first from China.  By the sides of the garden walls large cages are placed; in one may be seen some gold and silver pheasants, in another a splendid peacock; in another a gentle stork, and in another an elegant little deer.  There is often a grove of mulberry-trees in the garden, and in the midst of the grove houses made of bamboo, for rearing silk-worms.  It is the delight of the ladies to feed these curious worms.  None but very quiet people are fit to take care of them, for a loud noise would kill them.  Gold and silver fish also cannot bear much noise.