Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/158

and led the way rapidly through the outlying streets of Hongkew and on to the dirty Chinese bund, where the boat-coolies in their vile floating homes were beginning to crawl under the bamboo roofs of their boats. Here and there the glow of an opium lamp leaked out from the woven matting and showed where some poor wretch was finding short solace in the terrible drug. Mark's guide hurried along just ahead of him, and plunged suddenly through a gate in a high wall into a wholly native street paved with filthy stone flagging. There was a fearful and indescribable smell and a tumult of noise. Gloomy walls shut off the gray courts behind them from the street. The tortuous ways were filled with hurrying Chinese—vendors of all kinds of wares, men selling savory roast ducks besmeared with sesame oil; itinerant restaurants with little glowing braziers and rows of tiny cakes cooking in shallow pans; throngs of people with no apparent business but to move incessantly on and on. There were lanterns everywhere, and strange, dim, red lights burning smokily at the eaves of joss-houses, and glimpses through half-opened