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Updated: June 12, 2025
The harbour is crowded with men-of-war and trading vessels of many European nations, and hundreds of Malay praus and Chinese junks, from vessels of several hundred tons burthen down to little fishing boats and passenger sampans; and the town comprises handsome public buildings and churches, Mahometan mosques, Hindu temples, Chinese joss-houses, good European houses, massive warehouses, queer old Kling and China bazaars, and long suburbs of Chinese and Malay cottages.
In the afternoon, with Charlie Eager, a guest at the Annexe, I went to the worship-place of the Chinese, on the Broom Road. Outwardly, it had not the flaunting distinction of the joss-houses of the Far East or those of New York or San Francisco.
I told a clergyman that our people believed the Christian religion was very good for the Americans, and we had no fault to find with it, nor had we the temerity to insinuate that our own was superior. A Roman Catholic young lady whom I met spoke to me about burning our prayers, our joss-houses, and our dragon, which she had seen carried about the streets of San Francisco.
They looked into a tea saloon; and the gentlemen entered an opium den, which nearly made some of them sick. "This is called the Plain pagoda," said Mr. Inch, when they came to it. "It was built a thousand years ago, and is one hundred and sixty feet high." They were taken to a couple of Joss-houses, or temples.
They still, however, have their mental reservations with regard to their native Joss-houses and worship. But they are not singular in this respect. Mohammedans and Jews in the East allow their children to attend schools where English is taught, because with the knowledge of this they can the more readily find employment among tourists and in places of exchange.
I heard much about our joss-houses, but they fade into insignificance when compared with the splendid religious palaces of the Americans, and particularly those of the Catholics and Episcopalians. Their religious customs are beyond belief.
So often have the features of Chinatown been described its incense-scented joss-houses, its interminable stage-plays, its opium-joints, its drug-stores with their extraordinary remedies, its curiosity shops, and its restaurants that no repetition need be attempted here.
A certain time in the early morning is spent in worship at the shrines at home and in the temples. They place before their sacred images, offerings of tea, wine, rice, fruits and flowers. The Chinese lily is in full bloom at this season, and it occupies a conspicuous place in the joss-houses. It is for sale on every street corner.
Here there are the homes of the people who came from the land of Confucius, here the famous shops, the theatres, the Joss-houses where heathen worship is maintained. As soon then as you set foot within the area described you feel that you are in a strictly foreign country; and if this is your first visit, the place is to you a sort of terra incognita.
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