Before each house, on a table covered with a mat, is to be seen the offering of meat and drink, rice-spirit in a small white porcelain teapot, tea, betel with all its ingredients, fish, various kinds of Annamite vermicelli, roast duck, a quarter of pork, rice, bananas, and oranges. All this display is set out with flowers; then a couple of small tapers are lighted, and the manes, or domestic spirits, are respectfully invited to come and take their share of the consecrated love-feast. More: on a plate supported on a moderately high post, other and more delicate offerings are displayed,--composed generally of a bouquet of only two species of flowers, the one violet-tinted, the other yellow. As they are seen everywhere, it is probable that a symbolical meaning attaches to the union of these two flowers. Moreover, the rich plant an areca, the poor a large bamboo, in front of the various oblations, and to the top of each fasten a tiny basket of ratan, divided into five compartments. Finally, the altar of Buddha, which forms an indispensable appendage of every hut, is decked out with special pomp; and strips of yellow, red, and violet papers, inscribed with Chinese characters, are affixed to every door. These are intended to avert the presence of the evil spirit during the new year. ~AN ANNAMITE PASTIME.~ Meantime everybody, clothed in their best attire,--men, women, and children,--that is to say, in a striped tunic and pantaloons blue, red, yellow, violet, green, often with the two legs of different colours,--sallied forth to exchange greetings, or amuse themselves as best they might. Among the pastimes most in favour were the following. Javelin-throwing; in which a long lance of black wood was made to pass through a ring suspended from a post about three feet high, and this at a distance of six to nine yards. This game, which resembles the old Scotch exercise of tilting at a mark, requires considerable skill on the part of those who engage in it. Still more popular, especially among women and children, was the swing, single or double. And it was not without astonishment that the traveller found here, in the far East, a kind of “merry-go-round,” such as we see at our fairs and holiday fêtes, with a score of persons enjoying its revolutions. There was also the game of shuttle-cock, which was launched either with hand or foot. In the midst of all this turmoil might be heard the monotonous tomtom, the isolated sounds of some three-stringed guitars, and especially the sharp reports of petards, which are indispensable at every festival, and resemble sometimes the file-firing of infantry. ~THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES.~