whole far surpassing nature. But let us examine the finished picture. The dress is sky blue, flounced with green ; chains of the brightest gold adorn the neck, there are bracelets on the arms and rings on the fingers, gleaming with gems. The hair is pitchy black, the skin pearly white, the cheeks of vermilion and the lips of carmine ; as for the dress, it shows neither spot nor wrinkle, and is as taught, her lover would say, as the carved robes of a figure-head. Jack proudly hangs the picture above his bunk, but still, at times, he has his grave misgivings about the small hands and feet and about the rainbow-hued sailor's goddess into which Susan has been transformed. Ating's miniature work on ivory is conducted on the same co-operative and commercial lines, and is decidedly better than when the copies are enlarged. The paintings are always minute, but during my stay in the Colony I fell in with only one man who could venture with any success beyond a mere servile imitation of a photograph. He was a sort of genius in his way, and at the same time a most inveterate opium smoker ; when I first knew him, he was a good-looking dandy, in full work as a miniature painter, fond of good company and high living, a frequenter of music-halls and the gambling clubs of Victoria. He first smoked opium in moderation, but this habit gained upon him to such an extent, that when the hour for the pipe came on, no matter where he was, he had to rush off and abandon himself to the use of the drug, which soon brought him to his grave.
The lower quarter of the town to which I have alluded, em- braces '*Tai Ping Shan", or the Hill of Great Peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place; it is inhabited almost wholly by Chinamen; as for the women, they are numerous enough, but of the lowest
