are such as an American beggar would scorn. Any person visiting a hong will see on the sides of the building, at a considerable elevation from the ground, a number of shelves with divisions arranged like berths in a steamboat, intended for beds, but consisting of rough boards with square wooden blocks for pillows. Each one is enclosed with a coarse blue mosquito-netting; and mounting to the apartments by a ladder, here the coolies sleep the year round.
The teas are not generally brought to the hongs until sold. Before sale they are stored in warehouses, chiefly on Honan Island, opposite the city; but after disposal the large-sized chests are carried into the hongs, where they are sorted and repacked into smaller boxes, according to the wants of the purchaser. You will see different parts of the floor covered with packages large and small, into which the coolies are shaking teas. Each box contains a leaden canister, into some of which the teas are loosely poured, while in others the herb is wrapped in papers of half a pound weight, each stamped with Chinese characters. The canister is then closed by a lid, and afterward securely fastened down by the top of the chest. These canisters are made near at hand. Look around, and a few rods off you will see three or four expert hands turning the large sheets of the prepared metal into shape. Knowing the required size, the operators have a cubic block placed on the metal sheet, which, bending like paper, is folded over the block, assuming its shape, and the edges of the canister are instantly soldered by a second hand; a third, with the aid of another wooden form, prepares the lids; and thus a knot of half a dozen workmen, keeping steadily at their tasks, will make a large number of canisters in a day. Besides the laborers who cultivate and those who cure the tea, and the porters and boatmen who transport it, thousands are employed in different occupations connected with the trade. Carpenters make the chests, plumbers the leaden canisters, while painters adorn the boxes containing the finer kinds of teas with brilliant flowers or grotesque scenes.
About the season of the arrival of the tea in Canton, the Chinese dealers come to the foreign factories with “musters,” or samples in nice little tin canisters, with the names of the owners written on paper pasted down the sides, and you can select such as you like. The principal business is of course held with the tea merchants themselves, not those who come from the North, but the Cantonese, while the minor business of all the hongs is in a great measure conducted through the “pursers,” or foremen, who act between the Chinese and the foreigners, bringing in the accounts to the shipping-houses, and receiving the orders for cargoes. Give one of these men an order for tea and go to the hong shortly afterward, you will find numbers of workmen employed for you; —some bringing in the small boxes; others filling them, or, when filled, fastened, papered, and covered with matting, securing them firmly with ratans; others, finally, labelling them on the (Hirer covering,—the labels being printed with the name of the vessel, of the tea merchant, of the tea, and of the Canton forwarding-house, also with the initials of the purchaser, and the number of the lot. These labels are printed rapidly, being cut by one set of hands to the proper size for the use of the others who stamp them. All the types are carved in blocks of wood, and the whole fastened into a frame; then, in a little space just large enough for work,—for the printer has no immense establishment with signs on the outside of “Book and Job Printing,”—a Chinaman will sit down, snatch up a paper in one hand, and stamp it instantly with the wooden block letters, moistened with the coloring mixture used in printing.
When the teas are fairly ready to be conveyed to the ships, heavy cargo-boats are moored at the foot of the hong, their crews prepare for the chop, and the coolies within the hong stand ready to carry the chests. Every box is properly
