Immediately behind them comes another set of men, quite as evil-looking, with chains in their hands. These have a proud and haughty mien, as though the supreme authority of the town rested in their hands. Should any one be unwise enough to dispute that for a moment, he would find himself instantly bound and shackled, and bundled off to prison, where ample time would be given him to review his temerity.
Coming closely behind these scamps, the luxurious chair of the mandarin, carried by eight bearers, fills the vacant space in the street. He is the mayor of the town, and for all practical purposes the supreme power in it. He is an ideal-looking official, for he is large and massive in appearance, whilst he has that stern and uncompromising look that is supposed to be necessary in any magistrate who would hope to keep his subjects in order. He has a stern and forbidding aspect, as though he were on his way to the execution ground to have some criminal decapitated. This is the kind of air that the mandarins put on when they appear in public. In the course of many years' experience, I have never once seen any one of them, from the highest to the lowest, with a smile on his face or a look of sympathy for the people whilst he was being carried officially through the streets. In a few seconds the procession has passed by, and the human stream again flows along its ancient channel, and the life of the street is once more resumed.
We saunter along again closer to humanity than the most crowded city in the West, except on some great festival, could let one have. The sensation is not in every respect a pleasant one. The ancient odours of China assert themselves and will be felt, whilst the aroma of unwashed garments and persons that never used a bath, gives a delicate taint to the air that is purely Oriental.
But whilst moving slowly on and carefully guarding lest our feet should trip against the uneven slabs of stone with which the road is so badly paved, a strange procession of men catches our eye and at once arrests our footsteps. We count them one by one, and there are just ten of them, as gruesome and unsavoury a collection of human beings as could be made were the whole city to be ransacked to find their equal.