Some would take great pains to make perfect little models of a Chinese junk, painted gayly, and fit them out with little red and white banners, wax tapers, fruit and flowers. These boats contained as passengers clay images of men, women and children, and at dusk the tapers were lighted and the little vessels launched on the river as an offering to the spirits, to be borne away on the tide. Many charms were also used to keep off the evil spirits that bring disease. They consisted of strips of paper with various squares and marks upon them, sewed up in bits of red cloth or leather of a three-cornered shape. But by far the most common practice as a preventive of cholera was wearing a few strands of cotton yarn about the neck or wrist. Go where you would, in the market or along the river-side, nearly all women and children wore this white string. I have been in the houses of noblemen where one had just been taken sick, when all the women of the family were busy dividing a hank of cotton yarn into portions and tying them around the wrists or necks of themselves and their children with as much earnestness as though their lives depended on it. Often in trying to feel for the pulse of some poor dying creature have I pushed this cotton thread away to get at the wrist. Many houses were entirely encircled by a long cotton cord, with bits of written paper fastened to it here and there. The outer palace-walls, more than a mile in circumference, were thus girt around, the cord looped up from the battlements every few rods. But Death crossed the enchanted line, if the spirits did not, and hundreds of the king’s large household were swept away. The pestilence had not been prevailing long before the Chinese in the city, at their houses on land and at every floating house for miles along the river and canals, had a tall bamboo pole put up, with cords attached by which a little lantern could be raised to the top. After dark, when all these were lighted, they gave the river a beautiful appearance. This foolish waste of oil was kept up all night for weeks and months. Besides this, the Chinese tried to get the favor of their gods by the firing of crackers, boat-races and processions on land and water. There were other spirits, besides those that they supposed had caused the pestilence, that the Siamese treated with great respect during those days. Before or near almost every house, raised on a single pole about as high as one’s head, stood a little wooden house, having one small room opening on a little porch. In this porch and room you would always find a quantity of offerings――such curious ones, too, that you would be more sure than ever it was a doll’s play-house, yet the grown-up members of the family had built them to secure the good-will of the spirit guarding the spot occupied by their dwelling.