Round San Fernando, a Chinese will rent from a sugar-planter a bit of land which seems hopelessly infested with weeds, even of the worst of all sorts--the creeping Para grass {186}--which was introduced a generation since, with some trouble, as food for cattle, and was supposed at first to be so great a boon that the gentleman who brought it in received public thanks and a valuable testimonial.

The Chinaman will take the land for a single year, at a rent, I believe, as high as a pound an acre, grow on it his sweet potato crop, and return it to the owner, cleared, for the time being, of every weed.

The richer shopkeepers have each a store: but they disdain to live at it.

Near by each you see a comfortable low house, with verandahs, green jalousies, and often pretty flowers in pots; and catch glimpses inside of papered walls, prints, and smart moderator-lamps, which seem to be fashionable among the Celestials.

But for one fashion of theirs, I confess, I was not prepared.
We went to church--a large, airy, clean, wooden one--which ought to have had a verandah round to keep off the intolerable sunlight, and which might, too, have had another pulpit.