English: John Thomson: THIS is an after-dinner gathering on the verandah of a Chinaman's house. The entire domestic circle smoke tobacco, but their pipes differ from our own. The old woman and her daughter use a pipe which resembles the " hookah," having a small compartment filled with water, for cooling and purifying the smoke. Paterfamilias is fondling and sucking the end of what appears to be a very formidable walking stick ; but it is in reality his favourite pipe, having a cherished history attached to it, and invested with a degree of individuality that appeals to the tenderest feelings of its proprietor. In this we have a trait that reminds us of the regard, bordering sometimes on insanity, which smokers in our own country bestow upon the blackened bowl of an ancient meerschaum. And here let me ask my reader's sympathy for a devoted husband, whom his wife's misguided behaviour drove to the verge of despair. This unfortunate woman, rejoicing, in the unselfishness of a loving nature, to see her husband delighting in a smoke, took advantage of his absence from home to prepare a little surprise ; and so his nasty black pipe was, with a world of trouble, carefully scraped, cleaned, and varnished with furniture oil. Alas ! this pipe was a relic of bachelor days, a masterpiece of colouring, and mellowed by age, till its fumes were as delicate as the ripened tones of an old violin. There is then among the Chinese the same after-dinner companionship in smoking which in our own country strengthens the social ties ; but with this important difference, that in China the ladies smoke. Among people of higher rank the water-pipe is filled and brought in by a servant, who, waiting till a pause occurs in conversation, adroitly inserts the stem into her mistress's mouth. This custom, to an " outer barbarian," may at first seem strange, and doubly so, perhaps, when he perceives with dismay the swallowed smoke issuing during animated talk from the ladies' nostrils and mouth, belched forth in jets, as if to add force and piquancy to the conversation.