The scene before us is a thoroughly Oriental one and in some respects a very picturesque one. The narrow street only six feet wide, packed as it were with human life, is a splendid place from which to view the various items of which the life of the city is composed. Here is a scholar in his long gown, threadbare and showing signs of decay. Amidst the crowd of passers-by we should never mistake him for anything but what he is. His face has that keen intellectual look that the students of this Empire usually have. Though poor, he has a proud and haughty air, as though he felt himself higher than any of the crowd that brushes up against him. Coming close behind him is a farmer, rough and unsophisticated, with the sun burnt into his face, and with the air of a man who never opened a book in his life except the ancient one of nature which he has studied to such a purpose that he can read her secrets and can extract such crops from her as make his fields laugh for very gladness. Following on is a countryman whose home lies at the foot of the hills in the near distance. He is carrying a huge load of brushwood balanced on the ends of a bamboo pole slung across his shoulders, which he is carrying to the market to be sold as firewood. He occupies more than half the roadway, and when he swings his burden from one tired shoulder to the other, the width of the street is only just enough to contain it. He passes along, however, at a steady trot as though the town belonged to him. His loud cries, "Clear the way," "Get to the side," "I'll bump against you," are uttered with an air of authority as though some royal edict had given him the authority to take possession of the road in this masterful manner. [Illustration: A REFRESHMENT STALL. _To face p. 184._] It is amusing to watch the good-natured way in which the ebbing and flowing crowds yield to this man from the hills. Every one gets out of his way, and even the scholar, with pride and contempt in his heart for the unlearned masses, stands meekly at the side of the road and crushes himself up against a counter to let the imperious seller of firewood pass by. No thanks are given and none are asked, and as the tide of men close up behind him, we can hear coming down the air, "I'll bump you," "I'll bump you," "Go to the side," "Fly, fly," until the sounds so masterfully given and so meekly obeyed are lost in the distance.