William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

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Chapter 22: Heathen Chinee.

A Meek-eyed, passive Mongol moves your heart to pity, even while your ears are ringing with the scorn, and tingling with the curses, heaped on him and all his brood.

Note him at table, where his shining face, his natty figure and his nimble movements, tell so much from contrast with the dull tint, the shapeless contour, and the lumpy languor of a Negro servant. Note him in the kitchen, on the railway track, and in the silver mine; where he is always ready, with his shaven face, his twisted pig-tail, and his deferential smile, to do his best for you.

When sick of Biddy and her dirty finery, it is a cheery sight to find Hop Ki skimming about your table in a smock like newly-fallen snow.

“ Two knives under that smock, as innocent as he looks,” whispers my next neighbour, a gentleman