[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN CHINATOWN, SAN FRANCISCO.]
At the Christian Mission the Chinese minister, a man of much intelligence, greeted us cordially, asking where we were from. He knew where Chicago was and something about it. He was sorry that the services were over and asked us to come again next Sunday at ten o’clock.
The tea house, which is the club room, is the finest oriental club house in America. The beautiful tables and chairs are all inlaid with marble and pearl.
The Joss House, which is the temple, is magnificently adorned and decorated. A cup of tea, which of course evaporates, is kept setting in front of the god, but his worshipers believe he drinks it. Lamps and incense are kept burning all the time to keep the evil spirits away. The worshipers come and go at all hours. No regular services are held except at New Years and on feast days. Upon request, however, the priest will accompany an individual to the temple and conduct services for him.
The home of an aristocratic Chinaman is full of interest to an American. In the home in which we visited everything except the chairs came from China, and these looked oddly out of place against the background of rich oriental draperies, and the quaint costumes of our hostess and her daughter. Our hostess was a large woman, but she proudly displayed her tiny feet, the mark of true aristocracy. She hobbled bravely about on these feet only four inches long and did the honors of her house.
When in exchange for the compliment of seeing these aristocratic feet I quite as proudly thrust out my American ones encased in No. 6 broad-soled mountain climbers, the dear lady bowed and smiled, but made no comment. The six-year-old daughter of the house was suffering the tortures of having her feet bound. When the Chinese become Christians they abandon this practice.
In an opium den an old smoker showed us how he smoked the fateful drug. He first took a large lump of opium on a long needle and holding it in the flame of a candle, burnt the poison out of it, then thrust it into the cup of his long pipe, the tiny opening of which he held near the lighted candle, sucking the blue smoke into his lungs and exhaling it through his nostrils.