A Visit to Chinatown--Its Boundaries--A Terra Incognita--Fond of Mongrels--My Licensed Guide--The Study of the Signs--Men of All Callings--Picture of the Chinaman--Devoid of Humour--Confucius--Great Men from Good Mothers--Confucius to Women--Mormonism and Mohammedanism--How to Regenerate China--Slaves of the Lamp--Chinamen Impassive--Aroused to Wrath--How They Dress--The Queue--"Pidgin" English--Payment of Debts--Bankrupt Law--Suicide. When in the City of the Golden Gate you will not fail to visit the Chinese Quarter, or "Chinatown," as it is popularly called. Just as in an Oriental city like Jerusalem or Constantinople you find different nationalities or races living apart from each other, so here in San Francisco you have "Little China" in the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. It is as if you had unfolded to your wondering eyes in a dream some town from the banks of the Pearl River, the Yangtse-Kiang, or the Hwangho or. Yellow River; and it seems strange indeed that, without the trouble or expense and danger of crossing the waters of the Pacific, you can by a short walk from the midst of the teeming life of an American City, be ushered into streets that are foreign in appearance and where scenes that are unfamiliar to the eye attract your attention on every hand. With the exception of the houses, which, as a rule, take on a European or an American style of architecture, you might imagine that you were in Canton or some other Chinese city. The life is truly Asiatic and Mongolian in its character and in its display as well as in its customs. The home of the sons of the Flowery Kingdom in San Francisco is in the north-eastern section of the city, and may be said to be in one of the best portions of the metropolis of the West, sheltered as it is from the winds of the Pacific by the hills which are back of it, and with a commanding view of the Bay and its islands and the magnificent landscapes to the east, valleys and hills running up to the heights of the Sierras. The locality is bounded by Jackson, Pacific, Dupont, Commercial, and Sacramento streets, and embraces some eight squares; and within this space, crowded together, are the twenty-five or thirty thousand Chinese who form a part of the population of the city. There are Chinamen here and there in other parts of San Francisco, but nearly all live here in this quarter which we are now approaching. Here there are the homes of the people who came from the land of Confucius, here the famous shops, the theatres, the Joss-houses where heathen worship is maintained. As soon then as you set foot within the area described you feel that you are in a strictly foreign country; and if this is your first visit, the place is to you a sort of terra incognita. You will need a guide to take you through its labyrinths and point out to you its hidden recesses and explain the strange sights and interpret for you the language which sounds so oddly to your ears. If you have not some man