On the Monday following was the eclipse of the sun. The sky was cloudless and the eclipse was well observed. At first several were seen gazing at the sun through pieces of smoked glass, and of course some put the wrong side of the glass to the face and their blackened faces afforded mirth to their friends. Later on the sun could be easily watched with the naked eye, and the eclipsed sun sank below the hanson amidst a banging of gongs. But the Chinese possess much bet: ter notions' of astronomy than their fathers, or ours either for the niatter of that. The banging of gongs was much less than usually the case, the most earnest in their endeavours to frighten away the Heavenly Dog being the Ningpo boatmen on the lorchas at Hanyang. Of course
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.