It would be unwise to infer from this state of things that the Chinese are unhappy, or that they are conscious that their surroundings have something in them to induce melancholy or discontent. The ideal of the West is cleanliness, a thing that the East never seems to aim at, or to even dream of. This great city through which we are walking is an example of this latter statement. Its streets are unswept from one year's end to the other. Heaps of rubbish festering and fermenting in the sun and exhaling the most unpleasant odours meet you at every turn. The drains are badly made and left absolutely to themselves until, choked up, they are opened up for repairs, when the hidden compressed effluvia send their noxious vapours into the homes around. The people are highly uncleanly in their persons. They never bathe, and even in the homes of the rich the bath tub is an unknown luxury. The face and hands are about the only parts of the body that on ordinary occasions ever make the acquaintance of water. Their clothes, too, from a Western standpoint, are anything but satisfactory. They are frowsy and wanting in the crisp cleanliness that a liberal supply of soap and water impart to them. There are always certain garments that are worn day after day and week after week, that men never dream of cleansing in any way whatever. The lower you go down in the scale of life, the more conspicuous is this disregard of cleanliness, and yet it does not seem to affect either the general health or spirits of the people. They are a laughter-loving race, and jokes and funny stories and everything that would raise a smile to the face find a ready echo in their hearts. The fact that they are surrounded by dust and dirt and untidiness such as would put the shivers into any ordinary Englishman, and dim for the time being the very light of life, have no seeming effect upon this long-lived race. The people of this town appear to be endowed either with very good appetites, or to have very defective arrangements at home for supplying the wants of the inner man, for there seems to be an altogether extravagant number of itinerant kitchens with food already cooked stationed at various corners where the traffic is the greatest, to cater at once to the public appetite. Here is one close at hand, and as we have a few minutes to spare let us draw near and see what it is like. It consists of two wooden stands which can be slung on to the ends of a stout bamboo pole and carried at a moment's notice in any direction that suits the owner. Where trade is brisk at any particular spot, he remains there until his customers desert him, and then, shouldering his miniature eating-house, he goes off at a quick trot to the localities where the hungry are most likely to congregate.