142
W. J. HINTON
sails have been lowered and stowed, white awnings cover the decks, there is a gilded bamboo "whip" at the foremast of each junk and the bay is alive with small boats. Once past the police searchers, the crowd disperses into the town to buy food at the stalls which line the thoroughfares. Evidently this is fair day. All the shops are doing a roaring trade, and the streets are full of visitors from Hongkong, and even from Canton, and places a hundred miles away.
Presently we notice that the crowd is drifting in one direction; going with it, we find ourselves off the main street. Passing the gates we enter a field covered with booths and resounding with the clash of cymbals and the shrill note of the pipe. Here is all the fun of the fair.
A matshed has been erected, part theatre and part temple. At the far end a theatrical performance is now being given. The clang of cymbals marks the warlike gyrations of the actors, but now and then gives way to the shrill tones of the two-stringed violin in moments of pathos. And all the time the priests on either side of the open end of the theatre chant their services at two altars. A Chinese who is near me either cannot or will not tell me what gods are served at these altars. To me they seem to present an aspect of amicable rivalry.
On either side of the entrance, but without, stand two large conical frameworks of bamboo, stuck all over with small white rice cakes, and looking each like an ear of Indian corn. These are about twenty feet high. There are small replicas on portable platforms.
We leave the grounds and walk to the Pak Tai Temple where a procession is forming. It is one of several, for each village street provides a procession, and there is great emulation between the teams. The procession starts. At its head is a Dragon, at least it is a dragon for all practical ceremonial purposes though to the carnal eye it seems a large mask completely covering the head of a boy. He prances and sidles along, mopping and mowing most realistically, the formidable but apparently benevolent monster rolling his head and his eyes, and shaking his sinuous body; for which purpose a second lad under a red streamer of thin cloth goes through all the motions that can reasonably be expected of a Dragon's hind legs.
The beast is followed by bearers, carrying a platform covered with a canopy, and on the platform two small girls, powdered and