English hong and to the east of the American hong. Although you do not now see the unclean animal, there which gave it its name, that name still belongs to it by just right. It is a kind of low tavern, into which the Chinese invite the sailors, to sell them at a low price adulterated and fetid spirits. The numerous shops in this dark passage are at all hours the theatre of the most disgusting and licentious scenes of drunkenness. The two other Chinese streets are better frequented: one called Old China Street, and T'sing-youen by the Chinese, is situated between the French hong and an open place which joins the American hong; and the other, New China Street, or Toung-wan, comes after the French factory and precedes the Danish hong.
The banks of the Tchou-kiang, which runs through the district of the hongs, psesent from time to time convenient landing-places, round which are grouped flotillas of tankas, whose proprietors shout to you without ceasing, "My boat, captain? my boat?" But as soon as you leave the water's edge, and enter the house of any European merchant, a mournful silence succeeds to this tumult. The only one of these edifices which is worth the trouble of describing, is, as I have already said, the American hong. It is an immense building, the heavy facade of which, with its five doors, admits to five passages, or, to speak more correctly, five long streets. This
