an odd day on our leap year. The feast of the dead came some years since in May, and I well remember visiting the Chinese quarter of Lone Mountain Cemetery at that time to witness the ceremonies. Their New Year festivities are accompanied by an incessant roar of burning fireworks: crackers of every size, from those which pop in the slightest and most delicate manner, to those which make a report like a young cannon, are burned by the cartload at a time; but the feast of the dead is a more quiet and solemn affair. The rich merchants, clad in the costlist silk and broadcloth, go on the first day, riding in the finest carriages procurable, and followed by express-wagons, loaded with pigs roasted whole, rice, fancy dishes, liquors, and other eatables and drinkables without number. A messenger or herald rides on the outside of each carriage, and as he goes along throws off, right and left, handfulls of squares of thin, yellow paper, in the centre of which is a small, impressed character, or a bit of gold or silver foil, for what purpose I could never ascertain. Next day, the artisans and manufacturers go in plainer carriages, clubbing together to make a load; on the next, the poor laborers and public women, riding in overcrowded express-wagons, carrying their meat-offerings with them in the same vehicle; and on the last day, the miserably poor, the rag-pickers and garbage collectors, trudge humbly along on foot over the dusty road to the city of the dead, each carrying in his hand the trifling offering, which his extreme poverty permits him after months of economy to provide for the occasion.
