of science which they have made peculiarly their own, we must cross the river to Shameen, a pretty little green island, on which the foreign houses stand ; looking with its villas, gardens and croquet-lawns and churches like the suburb of some English town. We ascend a flight of steps in a massive stone retaining wall with which Shameen is surrounded, — and this done we might wander for a whole day and examine all the houses on the island, without discovering a trace of a merchant's office, or any outward sign of commerce at all. Those who are familiar with the factory site, and who can figure what that must have been in olden times, when the foreign merchants were caged up like wild beasts and subjected to the company and taunts of the vilest part of the river population, and to the pestilential fumes of an open drain that carried the sewage of the city to the stream, will be surprised at the transformation that has, since those days, been wrought.
The present residences of foreigners on this grassy site (re- claimed mud flat, raised above the river) are substantial, elegant buildings of stone or brick, each surrounded by a wall; an ornamental railing, or bamboo hedge, enclosing the gardens and outhouses in its circuit. Except the firm's name on each small brass door-plate, there is nothing anywhere that tells us of trade. But when we have entered, we find the dwelling-house on the upper story, and the comprador's room and offices on the ground-floor; next to the offices the tea-taster's apartment. Ranged against the walls of this chamber are rows of polished shelves, covered with small round tin boxes of a uniform size, and each bearing a label and date in Chinese and English writing. These boxes contain samples of all the various sorts of old and new teas, used for reference and comparison in tasting, smelling and scrutinising parcels, or chops, which may
