ejaculates an observant Yankee fellow-passenger; and he aptly enough expressed the sensation it gives one who witnesses the whole scene for the first time.
Time seems to be measured by Oriental standards here. All work is done in a leisurely fashion. An old horse is discharging cargo by means of a whim, instead of a steam crane, from a Dutch-looking lugger. Piles of hop bales litter the landing-place, and it would seem almost as if their hypnotic influence had cast a sleepy spell over the whole environment. The very steeples on the old grey churches in the city seem to nod in the gathering haze, and the smoke from the chimneys curls aloft in a somewhat aimless fashion, as if the fires below were all only half alight. An enthusiastic Victorian cannot refrain from commenting on this general attitude of sleepiness.
"Humph," says he; "there's the effects of free trade for ye not a blessed factory or a steam engine in the whole place!"
A little boy with a wan, pinched face, and the shabby-genteel look which patched and darned but scrupulously clean clothes gives to the wearer, now accosts us. "Board and residence, sir?" he pipes in a squeaky treble. Poor little fellow, doubtless a sad tale he could tell. And so my gentle little travelling companion with a woman's quick imagination, begins to weave a romance of misfortune and penury, in which the little tout figures as the heir of a noble but decayed family. The mother, a fragile uncomplaining martyr, faith-
