dinner, after which I was told that card-parties were made up, and that
the residents played till near midnight. Thus from observation and
hearsay, I gathered that the life of a European Saigonese was made up
of business in baju and pyjamas with cheroot in mouth from 6 to 9:30
A.M., then the bath, the toilette, and the breakfast of claret and
curry; next the sleeping, smoking, and lounging till tiffin; after
tiffin a little more work, then the band, billiards, ecarte, absinthe,
smoking, dinner, and card-parties, varied by official entertainments.

Rejecting a guide, I walked about Saigon, saw its streets, cafes, fruit
markets, bazaars, barracks, a botanic or acclimatization garden, of
which tigers were the chief feature, got out upon the wide, level
roads, bordered with large trees, which run out into the country for
miles in perfectly straight lines, saw the handsome bungalows of the
residents, who surround themselves with many of the luxuries of Paris,
went over a beautiful convent, where the sisters who educate native
girl children received me with kindly courtesy; and eventually driving
in a gharrie far beyond the town, and then dismissing it, I got into a
labyrinth of lanes, each with a high hedge of cactus, and without
knowing it found that I was in a native village, Choquan, a village in
which every house seems to be surrounded and hidden by high walls of a
most malevolent and obnoxious cactus, so as to insure absolute privacy
to its proprietor. Each dwelling is under the shade of pommeloe,
orange, and bamboo. By dint of much peeping, and many pricks which have
since inflamed, I saw that the poorer houses were built of unplaned
planks or split bamboo, thatched with palm leaves, with deep verandas,
furnished with broad matted benches with curious, round bamboo pillows.
On these men, scarcely to be called clothed, were lying, smoking or
chewing the betel-nut, and all had teapots in covered baskets within
convenient reach. The better houses are built of an ornamental