in tinsel decorate the walls. Here is a shrine with a vermilion-faced
god and a native lamp, and stalks of such hopelessly artificial flowers
as fortunately are unknown in nature. Saffron silks flutter their
fringes in the steams of nameless cookery - for all this is but the
kitchen, and the beginning of the end we aim at.

A spiral staircase winds like a corkscrew from floor to floor; we ascend
by easy stages, through various grades of hunger, from the economic
appetite on the first floor, where the plebeian stomach is stayed with
tea and lentils, even to the very housetop, where are administered
comforting syrups and a menu that is sweetened throughout its length
with the twang of lutes, the clash of cymbals, and the throb of the
shark-skin drum.

Servants slip to and fro in sandals, offering edible birds'-nests,
sharks'-fins, and beche de mer, - or are these unfamiliar dishes
snatched from some other kingdom? At any rate, they are native to the
strange people who have a little world of their own in our midst, and
who could, if they chose, declare their independence tomorrow.

We see everywhere the component parts of a civilization separate and
distinct from our own. They have their exists and their entrances; their
religious life and burial; their imports, exports, diversions,
tribunals, punishments. They are all under the surveillance of the six
companies, the great six-headed supreme authority. They have laws within
our laws that to us are sealed volumes. * * *

After supper we leaned from the high balcony, among flowers and
lanterns, and looked down upon the street below; it was midnight, yet
the pavements were not deserted, and there arose to our ears a murmur as