Mission and under their skillful guidance, we were soon taken
ashore.

A closer view of the Chinese city proved less attractive than
the captivating one from the harbour. The population long
ago over-ran the limits of the old city so that to-day most of
the people are outside the walls. Within those ancient battlements,
the streets are narrow and crooked, while the filth is
indescribable. The visitor who wishes to see something of the
work and to enjoy the hospitality of the noble company of
Presbyterian missionaries on Temple Hill must either pass through
that reeking mess or go around it. There is, after all, not
much choice in the routes, for the Chinese population outside
the walls has simply squatted there without much order, and
the corkscrew streets are not only thronged with people and
donkeys and mules, but malodorous with ditches through which
all the nastiness of the crowded habitations trickles. Why
pestilence does not carry off the whole population is a mystery
to the visitor from the West, especially as he sees the pools out
of which the people drink, their shores lined with washerwomen
and the water dark and thick with the dirt of decades. Byron's
words in ``Childe Harold'' are as true of Chefoo as of Lisbon:

``But whoso entereth within this town,
That, sheening far, a celestial seems to be,
Disconsolate will wander up and down
'Mid many things unsightly to strange e'e;
For hut and palace show like filthily.
The dingy denizens are reared in dirt,
No personage of high or mean degree