When, in our walks, we meet these cows they often exhibit fear, especially of foreign ladies and horses, sights with which they are not familiar. The little humpback cows prance skittishly out of the paths; but the great buffaloes stand quite still and stare at us, then throw up their noses and sniff the air in an offended manner that in turn makes us afraid of them. [Illustration: THE WATER-BUFFALO.] At night they are all brought home from their wanderings, and the ropes by which they are led are tied to stakes driven into the ground; in winter under a shed, but in summer in the open air. It makes one's neck ache to see them; for the rope is frequently tied so short that they cannot hold their heads erect nor move them very freely, but they do not appear to suffer. Next to his business the milkman values his daughter, who, when I first saw her, was a plump, rosy-cheeked child and tended her father's cows. If you ever saw a doll with a plaster head that had been broken and then had been mended by having a strip of black silk glued over the crack, you will know how Mr. Sweet Potatoes' daughter looked. She wore a piece of black crape bound tightly about her head so that no one could see her hair. Some persons said that, owing to illness, she had no hair. If so it must have grown afterwards; for, when she was older and had left tending the cows, she had it put up on her head with pins, in a strange fashion that showed she was going to be married. Sweet Potatoes had no son and he wished his son-in-law to come and live with him as if he belonged to him. Among the Chinese this is not considered so honorable or so genteel, as to have the daughter leave her home and go and live with her husband's family. It seemed strange that the son-in-law should consent; for though he was very poor he was also very proud, and was very particular to have respect shown to him and in regard to the kinds of work that he was willing to do. I should never have guessed his foolish reason for being so proud, but some one told me that it was because his father, now dead, had once held a small office in the Custom House! SHETLAND WOMEN Not far outside the town of Lerwick, on the Shetland Islands there is a great, black, muddy tract of land called a peat-bog. All about is utter desolation. There are no huts even to be seen. The town is concealed by a rounded hill; and when, through some opening between the bare upheavals, one catches a sight of the North Sea, it, too, seems deserted by mankind. The peat, or mixture of roots and peculiar black soil, is dug here in large quantities; and all about the place are great piles of it, dried and ready to be burned in the fire-places of the Lerwick people. Peat takes the place of wood; and in every poor man's hut in Shetland will it be found burning brightly, and giving out a thin blue smoke.