that, in conjunction with light, they are indebted to shade for the visible appearance of all things animate and inanimate which make up the Chinese Empire. These desultory notes would be incomplete were I to omit an account of the portrait and minia- ture painters of the Colony. They have no Academy or peri- odical exhibitions, in which one may inspect their work, it is therefore necessary to visit the studios. The walls of Ating's atelier are adorned with paintings in oil, and at one extremity of the apartment a number of artists are at work, producing large coloured pictures from small imperfect photographs. The proprietor has an assistant, whose business it is to scour the ships in port in search of patrons among the foreign crews. Jack desirous of carrying home a souvenir of his visit to the wonderful land of pigtails and tea, supplies a photograph of Poll or Susan, and orders a large copy to be executed in oils. The whole to be finished, framed and delivered in two days, and is not to exceed the contract price of four dollars, or about one pound sterling of our money. The work in this painting-shop, like many things Chinese, is so divided as to afford the maxi- mum of profit for the minimum of labour. Thus one artist sketches, another paints the face, a third does the hands, and a fourth fills in the costume and accessories. Susan is placed on the limner's easel and is covered with a glass bearing the lines and squares which solve the problem of proportion in the large work. A strange being the artist looks, he has just roused himself from a long sleep, and his clothes are redolent of the fumes of opium ; he peers through his large spectacles into poor Susan's black eyes, and measures out her fair proportions as he transfers them to the canvas, — then she is passed from hand to hand, until at last every detail has been produced with pre-Raphaelite exactitude, and a glow of colour added to the
