We  only  skirmislied  around  this  dish  in  a  coy,  inquiring
manner,  really  not  caring  to  go  into  it,  but  feeling  that  it
woidd  be  an  impropriety  to  come  to  a  Chinese  dinner  and
not  taste  shark's  fins.  What  would  folks  at  home  say
about  us?  In  this  spirit — a  spirit  of  duty;  of  doing
something  that  had  to  be  done  —  that  was,  among  other
reasons,  why  we  were  ten  thousand  miles  from  home,  on
our  way  around  the  world  —  we  went  through  our  Chinese
dinner.     The  dishes  that  we  knew  were  so  disguised  that

en  when  they  made  themselves  known  they  were  be-
yond recognition.    The  dishes  we  did  not  know  we  experi-
ted  ujxm.     We  discovered  that  the    bird's-nest  soup
insipid  ;  that  shark's  fins  were  oily  and  rancid ;  that


686


GRANT'S    TOUR


fish-brain  was  too  rich ;  that  the  preparations  of  whaf
sinews  and  bamboo  and  fish  maw,  mushrooms,  and  a  whoie_
family  of  the  fungus  species  were  repelling  ;  that  the  chi|
ping  of  the  ham  and  duck  and  pigeon  into  a  kind  of  hs
took  away  all  the  qualities  that  inspire  respect  for  them
home ;  and  that  the  fatal  omission  was  bread.  "  If  you
to  a  Chinese  dinner,"  said  a  friend  on  shipboard,  "  be  sc
and  take  a  loaf  of  bread  in  your  pocket."  I  thought  of
this  injunction  as  I  was  preparing  to  dine  with  the  Vic
roy,  but  had  not  the  courage  to  go  into  a  Chinese  pals
like  Benjamin  Franklin,  with  a  loaf  of  bread  under  mjr
arm.  If  we  had  been  dining,  we  should  have  missed  tfc
bread ;  but  none  of  us  went  through  the  dinner,  except  tli
Doctor,  perhaps,  who  viewed  the  entertainment  from  a  pro-
fessional point  of  view,  and  went  through  it  in  a  spirit  of
discovery.  When  the  feast  was  about  two-thirds  over,  tk
Viceroy,  seeing  that  General  Grant  and  Mr.  Borie  ha
gone  beyond  the  possibility  of  dinner,  proposed  a  walk
the  garden.  The  remainder  of  the  party  waited  until  the
dinner  was  over.  It  was  a  long  and  weary  repast,  one
that  the  novelty  passed  away.
