The head-servants employed by foreign families speak the “pigeon” English, and act as interpreters for the other domestics. This _patois_ is nearly a literal rendering of the Chinese idiom into a dialect which is more like “English baby-talk” than anything else I can compare it to, and foreigners readily acquire it. The particular duties of each servant are regulated by fixed rules, and if one should order his “boy,” or head-servant, to sweep his room, or carry his trunk to the boat, the ready answer would be,--“That no my pigeon; my callee house-Coolie.” On the other hand, should the house-Coolie be ordered to purchase the supplies, or polish the silver, the grave but respectful answer would be,--“That no my pigeon; my callee boy.” A Coolie works for certain wages, and makes his own bargains, nor will he serve unless paid his price. Should a foreigner attempt to impose upon or cheat a Coolie, and the fact be made known to him after he had commenced his services, he would leave him directly. A chair-Coolie, under such circumstances, would set down the sedan, and in the most independent manner refuse to move unless his terms were complied with. I am thus particular in speaking of this class of the Chinese, because the remark has been made to me that the difference as to their position in relation to foreigners, and the wealthier classes of their own people, must be as great as that of American slaves to their masters. But the difference between a people free to go where they please,--to make their own bargains, and to contend with their employers for right and justice,--and the poor enslaved African of the South, is as wide as that between light and darkness. As servants, I found the Coolies very systematic and willing, as well as quick at learning to perform their duties according to our ideas, or, as they would say, “America fashion.” A lady rarely, if ever, enters the kitchen, and all orders are given to the butler or head-servant. On ordering a dish in which the cook is unskilled, he brings his little furnace to a large pantry, where the lady of the house, with the aid of a waiting-man’s “pigeon” English, and an occasional use of unmistakable pantomime, succeeds in giving the grave and stolid-looking representative of the culinary art instruction that will not be forgotten. And ever after, that piece of cookery will be an exact copy of his first, and only needed lesson. On entering upon life in China I was told that I must not expect the servants to be in any degree nice and cleanly, according to our Western ideas. I was, however, so fortunate as not to be conscious of this; and although I regularly penetrated into nooks and corners,[19]--beyond what I should otherwise have done,--in order to mark the difference, the result was always favorable to the general neatness and tidy habits of our Coolies, as compared with most of the foreign servants we have in the United States.