My sketch of Amoy has thus far been a dark one, and yet the true picture is not without some glances of Hght striking down even into the lowest quarters of the town. Thus, in one of my many perambulations I came to a very narrow and very dark lane, where I found the humble tenants of the houses engaged in what, to me, was quite a new industry. Men, women and children were all busily occupied in the manufacture of most beautiful artificial flowers, from a pith obtained in Formosa, from the same plant {Aralia papyrifera) as that out of which the so-called rice-paper is made. I entered shop after shop, and everywhere found thousands of flowers spread out on trays, and each one so lifelike that it might almost be mistaken for nature herself. But tiny hands were at work here too, and roses, lilies, azaleas and camelias grew up with wonderful celer- ity beneath them. The workshops are the dwellings, the offices and the warehouses of each firm, or family; and the workers within are so closely packed that strangers not unfrequently must watch the process, or make a purchase, by taking up a position outside. I bought a great many of these flowers from a man in a very mean shop indeed. He was extremely poor, and he asked me for an advance of money, ofl'ering to furnish security if I wished. I lent him a few dollars without troubling him for securities; and though I knew nothing about him, he carried out the transaction with the most scrupulous honesty.
There are many wealthy Chinese merchants in Amoy, who live in good style and in superior houses on the hills above and beyond the town. On those hills, too, we may find temples and monastic establishments, built in the most romantic situations among great granite boulders which tower in some places many hundred feet above the plain. Thus from the rock on which the
- White Stag" monastery stands one obtains a commanding view
