Our next visit was paid to the workers in ivory. Here, in a similarly dark shop, men were employed in carving most exquisitely delicate flowers, scenes, and figures. Brushes, mirror‐frames, fans, glove‐stretchers, penholders, card‐cases, and boxes of all sizes were being fashioned and adorned. I was particularly interested in the making of those curious Chinese puzzle‐balls, which contain one within another a dozen or more spheres, all down to the innermost one covered with beautiful carvings which can be seen through the round holes pierced in the sides. The owner of the shop showed me an apprentice learning how to make them and practising on an old billiard ball. Holes are drilled down to the depth which will be the circumference of the second outermost ball. A graving tool, hooked like a hoe, is introduced into them and worked round until there is a complete solid sphere detached inside. It is then carved in designs, every part being reached by turning the ball round until each portion of the surface has come opposite one of the holes through which the carving instrument can reach it. Then a similar process is gone through at a greater depth from the outside, which gives the third outermost sphere; and so on until the innermost ball is reached, which is carved and left solid. There are sometimes as many as twenty‐four of these graduated spheres. To one who has never seen how they are made it seems impossible to understand how these balls within balls are carved. Sections of elephants’ tusks lay about in the shop to prove to the customers that only real ivory is employed; but bone is often used in the making of cheaper articles. In this trade, too, good sight is necessary; and the proprietor of this establishment told me that the eyes of his workmen soon give out. Here, again, the bad light was responsible. In Kioto, in Japan, I have watched men engaged in damascene or inlay work in dingy attics lighted only by small, smoky oil lamps, and was not surprised to learn that their sight did not last long. We next inspected some embroidery shops, where specimens of wonderful work, both new and old, were to be seen. The latter come chiefly from the numerous pawnshops, the tall towers of which rise everywhere throughout the city; for they receive annually large quantities of old garments, sold by members of ancient but impoverished families who are forced to part with the wardrobes that have come down to them through many generations. Magnificent mandarins’ state costumes may be obtained for from forty to eighty or a hundred dollars. Some of the embroidery is undoubtedly antique and valuable; but a good deal of it sold as old consists of new and inferior substitutions and even of European‐manufactured imitations of the real article. This the white man in his innocence buys and goes on his way rejoicing, until some connoisseur among his female friends points out his error and leaves him abashed at his own ignorance.