which may be explained by the proverbial dislike of Chinamen for walking exercise, and the temptation to hire a donkey, and squeeze the fare out of the money given them for other purposes. That house is not clean inside, signifies that devils and bogies, so dreaded by the Chinese, have taken up their residence therein; in fact, that the house is haunted. He’s all rice-water, i.e., gives one plenty of the water in which rice has been boiled, but none of the rice itself, is said of a man who promises much and does nothing. One load between the two is very commonly said of two men who have married two sisters.  In China, a coolie’s “load” consists of two baskets or bundles slung with ropes to the end of a flat bamboo pole about five feet in length, and thus carried across the shoulder.  Hence the expression.  Apropos of marriage, the guitar string is broken, is an elegant periphrasis by which it is understood that a man’s wife is dead, the verb “to die” being rarely used in conversation, and never of a relative or friend.  He will not put a new string to his guitar is, of course, a continuation of the same idea, more coarsely expressed as putting on a new coat.  His father has been gathered to the west—­a phrase evidently of Buddhistic import—­is no more, has gone for a stroll, has bid adieu to the world, may all be employed to supply the place of the tabooed verb, which is chiefly used of animals and plants.  After a few days’ illness he kicked, is a vulgar way of putting it and analogous to the English slang idiom.  The Emperor becomes a guest on high, riding up to heaven on the dragon’s back, with flowers of rhetoric ad nauseam; Buddhist priests revolve into emptiness, i.e., are annihilated; the soul of the Taoist priest wings its flight away.

Only a candle-end left is said of an affair which nears completion; red and white matters are marriages and deaths, so called from the colour of the clothes worn on these important occasions.  A blushing person fires up, or literally, ups fire, according to the Chinese idiom.  To be fond of blowing resembles our modern term gassing.  A lose-money-goods is a daughter as compared with a son who can go out in the world and earn money, whereas a daughter must be provided with a dowry before any one will marry her.  A more genuine metaphor is a thousand ounces of silver; it expresses the real affection Chinese parents have for their daughters as well as their sons.  To let the dog out is the same as our letting the cat out; to run against a nail is allied to kicking against the pricks.  A man of superficial knowledge is called half a bottle of vinegar, though why vinegar, in preference to anything else, we have not been able to discover.  He has always got his gun in his hand is a reproach launched at the head of some confirmed opium debauchee, one