Their worship of them, such as it is, is almost universal. Every house has its shrine and altar, and even in the porches of foreign residents in the quarters occupied by the Chinese servants, one sometimes (although not often) sees a little figure in a niche, with a tiny joss-stick before it. Every junk and sampan has its tutelary idol. A little shrine of bamboo of the size of a common birdcage is built for it, sometimes fixed and sometimes movable. The interior of this was gilded once, but the gilt is worn and tarnished by smoke and water. It has doors that open when the joss-sticks are to be burnt before the toy figure that presides on a miniature throne. A sampan whose owners are too poor to supply themselves with decent clothing, will be sure to have its tawdry baby-house and doll idol, and it frequently has in addition a roll of paper, four feet by one, like a window curtain, with, a gay picture of Joss, in a scarlet dress, in the act of dancing, and generally in a very absurd posture for such a respectable character. Every evening at sunset there is a prodigious hubbub from the junks on the Woosung, made with tom-toms, drums, and other unmelodious instruments, which are vigorously beaten for ten or fifteen minutes, to bring good luck, and propitiate the devils, or frighten them away for the night. From the shore, the rapid motions of a dozen arms on the high poop of each junk, tossed aloft in the dusk, and the discordant, harsh sounds that come from so many vessels at once, arrest the attention of the stranger, and once seen and heard, are never forgotten.