"Our cook, 'Lo,' takes care of our pigeons. Some have died and a few have
been stolen, but they have continued gradually to increase. They now
number twenty. They are very pretty, and very tame. They spend much of the
time on the open veranda in front of our house. Some of them are of a dark
brown color, some are perfectly white, some are black and white. We shall
soon have enough to begin eating pigeon pies, but I suppose we shall be
loth to kill the pretty birds. Some of them are of the Carrier pigeon
species. We might take them to a good distance from Amoy and they would
doubtless find their way home again. The Chinese have a small whistle
which they sometimes fasten on the back of the pigeons near the tail. 'Lo'
has some attached to some of our pigeons. When they fly swiftly through
the air, you can hear the whistle at a great distance. The noise often
reminds us of the whistle of a locomotive.
"The gold-fish in the lamp continue much as when I wrote before. We have
made some additions to our flower-pots and flowers this spring. Our open
veranda is being turned into a sort of open garden. We now have from sixty
to seventy pots, from the size of a barrel down to the size of a two-quart
measure. Some of them are empty and some of them are not. Besides
flowers, we have parsley, onions, peppers, mint, etc., etc. Our garden
does not flourish as well as it would, if I had time to attend to it.
Besides this, the pigeons are very fond of picking off the young sprouts.
Lest you should think us too extravagant, I ought to tell you the cost of
the flower-pots. Those which were presented to us, did not cost us
anything. Those we bought, cost from a cent apiece to sixpence. Some two
or three cost as high as fifteen or twenty cents apiece. But you will never
understand how nice and how odd we have it, unless you step in some day to
look for yourself."