CHAPTER XI.
THE CHINESE FEAST OF THE DEAD.
Weird and Ghastly Scene in a Chinese Temple at Midnight.—The Story of Concatenation Bill.—The True History of the Great Indian Fight on the Gila.
What a strange, peculiar people are these Chinese! Dwelling among us, they are not of us; but are born and grow up, and toil and die here in the midst of the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century, just as they have been being born and growing up, and toiling and dying, for ages on ages, in the "Central Flowery Empire" on the other shore of the blue Pacific. They walk the same streets and breathe the same air with us; but they do not talk the same language; do not act as we act; do not reason as we reason; do not think as we think. From the cradle to the grave, the Chinaman is always a Chinaman, adhering to the traditions of his ancestors, walking in the footsteps of his fathers, careless of the approbation or reprobation of the rest of mankind, except so far as it may affect him pecuniarily. Keen at a bargain, naturally quick-witted and sharp of comprehension, a patient toiler, and skillful at every kind of handiwork to which he turns his attention, he yet halts unaccountably on the shore of progress, and is
