hospitality proved him to be no exception to the majority of his associates in China. We were here shown some of the most beautiful and delicate fan-painting that I have ever come across, representing, for the most part, garden scenes. Asking to be introduced to the artists, I was shown into an apartment at the back of the premises, where I found three occupants. Two were seated before a table, engaged in designing on the yet unpainted fans, while the third lay stretched on a couch, indulging in an opium-pipe. They were, all of them, opium- smokers; and it struck me that their most finely imaginative paintings were executed under the influence of the drug. As I have said, the pictures produced by these men were remark- able for their beauty, and that because the drawing and per- spective were good, and the designs full of delicacy. Here, then, we find Chinese art pure and simple, without the ad- mixture of any foreign element, as in Hongkong ; and my opinion is that it is a higher class of art than we are apt to suppose the Chinese to possess. But then we must bear in mind that after all we do not know much about China and her art. It was only the other day, when in Peking, that I picked up one or two old pictures which had formed part of the collection of a private Chinese gentleman, and that alone gave me a more favourable opinion of, at any rate, the ancient school of Chinese artists.
One specimen, a series of original sketches representing chil- dren at play, was as remarkable for its quaint humour as for its clever execution; yet the pictures are nothing more preten- tious than unelaborated pen-and-ink sketches. In a postscript attached to his book, the artist modestly tells his readers, "I have made up a portfolio of twelve sketches, consecutively illustrative of the four seasons of the year, beginning with a
