The smells are
unbelievably hideous. Except for an occasional canal, a reeking open
sewer, there are no open spaces whatever. And yet these narrow alleys
of two-storied houses are marvellously picturesque, with coloured
streamers and coloured lanterns drooping from every house and shop,
and the shops themselves are a joy to the eye. They are entirely open
to the street in front, but in the far dim recesses of every one there
is a species of carved reredos, over which dragons, lacquered black,
or lacquered red, gilded or silvered, sprawl artistically. In front of
this screen there is always a red-covered joss table, where red lights
burn, and incense-sticks smoulder, all of which, as shall be explained
later, are precautions to thwart the machinations of the peculiarly
malevolent local devils. In food shops, hideous and obscene entrails
of unknown animals gape repellently on the stranger, together with
strings and strings of dried rats, and other horrible comestibles; in
every street the yellow population seems denser and denser, the colour
more brilliant and the smells more sickening. We could not have stood
it but for the thoughtful Consul-General's Borneo cigars, though the
small midshipman, being still of tender years, was brought to public
and ignominious disaster by his second cheroot.
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