Nothing was altered in these teeming galleries, except that turbid daylight had imperceptibly given place to this other dimness, in which lanterns swung like tethered fire-balloons.

Life went on, mysteriously, without change or sleep.
While the two white men shouldered their way along, a strange chorus broke out, as though from among the crowded carcasses in a butcher's stall.

Shrill voices rose in unearthly discord, but the rhythm was not of Asia.
"There goes the hymn!" scoffed Heywood.

He halted where, between the butcher's and a book-shop, the song poured loud through an open doorway.
Nodding at a placard, he added: "Here we are: 'Jesus Religion Chapel.' Hear 'em yanging! 'There is a gate that stands ajar.' That being the case, in you go!" Entering a long, narrow room, lighted from sconces at either side, they sat down together, like schoolmates, on a low form near the door.

From a dais across at the further end, the vigorous white head of Dr.Earle dominated the company,--a strange company, of lounging Chinamen who sucked at enormous bamboo pipes, or squinted aimlessly at the vertical inscriptions on the walls, or wriggling about, stared at the late-comers, nudged their neighbors, and pointed, with guttural exclamations.