Let us now see something of the natives and their occupations. It is market day in Port Edward; the streets are alive with crowds, buying, selling and haggling, and crowding round the 56 food stalls with their piles of strange delicacies in bowls and saucers. In one corner they are bargaining for pigs, in another are piled loads of fuel, scrub oak and fir, brought in from the country round on the backs of donkeys and mules. There is no coal, and the peasant has stripped the country of most of its woods, here as in other parts of China. Here again we have a 57 village market and a group of peasants with sacks of grain and bundles of brushwood for sale. Outside the village they are 58 threshing the grain in a primitive way with a roller, and drying peanuts on the threshing floor. Everywhere, on the banks of the streams, we find the village washing-places, where clothes 59 are washed and pounded in the fashion which the Chinese adopt all the world over. Down on the shore we see the fishermen 60 cutting up sharks for the fins, which are greatly prized by the Chinese as a relish. _Mat’ou_ was a fishing village on the site of the present port before the Japanese occupation, and fish of all kinds swarm in the neighbouring seas. Agriculture and fishing are still the main business of the people. It is true that 61 here at Port Edward we see them repairing junks, and a great quantity of timber is lying about; but the timber must all be brought from the Yalu river, and the old iron which is piled 62 near has been salved from the sunken warships at Port Arthur. Notice the pony, with his load of brushwood, in the foreground. There are as yet no materials for local industries, and it does not seem likely that Wei-hai-wei, in its isolated corner, will grow into a great commercial centre. None the less we may see an important European settlement develop on the site of the old native fishing village. It is not too far away from Peking and Shanghai; the rainfall in the year is about the same as in London, though there are far fewer rainy days, as the rain falls more in heavy showers; while the summer is dry, and cooler than in most of China. There is already a school for European boys at Port Edward, and it seems well fitted as a summer watering-place for those whose work takes them to the Far East. In winter it is less pleasant. The northern gales bring snow, as we see in this 63 picture, and the cold is so severe that the thick ice is collected, as in northern Europe, to be stored for use in summer.