Note 33 — Chapter III · JOURNEY TO DONGTSE.
Reading edition
Cf. Captain Sam. Turner, op. cit., 236, and Geo. Bogle (in C. R. Markham’s ‘Narrative of the Mission, etc.,’ 97). Bogle there says, “The floor is of a chalky clay, mixed with small pebbles, and formed into a smooth and very beautiful terrace, which, by the labours of a young gylang, who every morning gets his feet upon two woollen cloths, and exercises himself for three or four hours in skating about the room, will, in the course of fifteen or twenty years, acquire a polish equal to the other floors in the palace, which are not inferior to the finest variegated marble.”—(W. R.) ↑