330 DAVIS ON CANTON AND HONGKONG, [April 27, 1857. 



towards which 800?. had already been subscribed, would be shortly 

 advertised. The Eighth Number of the Proceedings of the Society 

 was laid on the table. 



The Chairman then drew the attention of the meeting to the 

 Chinese maps, presented by Consul Parkes, f.r.g.s. 



The papers read were : — 



1. Memoir on the Neighbourhood of Canton and Hongkong, and the East 

 Coast of China. By Sir John Francis Davis, Bart., k.c.b., f.r.g.s. 



As the seat of the late operations, and the most probable theatre 

 of the future ones, in the existing dispute with China, it may per- 

 haps be of some interest to take a general view of the neighbour- 

 hood of Canton and Hongkong, including the whole of the river as 

 far up as the provincial capital of Kuang-tung province. All our 

 troubles since the war (at least, all that have not admitted of a 

 satisfactory arrangement) have been at Canton. Circumstances, 

 which cannot be fully detailed here, have tended to promote both 

 the ill-feeling and the arrogance of the Cantonese. At most of the 

 new ports to the northward the power and the moderation of the 

 British were equally demonstrated during the war, until the growing 

 good feeling of the native population towards their invaders became 

 one of the omens, at least, which induced the Imperial Government 

 to hasten an accommodation with us. Canton, on the other hand, 

 has escaped chastisement, and (as might have been foreseen) attri- 

 buted this merciful forbearance to wrong motives ; — a mistake 

 which the experience of the North has not corrected, because the 

 immense distances and the imperfect means of communicating 

 knowledge (so inferior to our own in Europe) keep the different 

 portions of that empire very much in the dark respecting each other. 

 A better proof of this almost incurable ignorance could not be 

 adduced, than the account of the English received by M. Hue from 

 a Tartar near Peking, one of a body who had been stationed at Tien- 

 tsin, to oppose us in case we approached the capital. To the ques- 

 tion, " Vous etes-vous battus ? avez-vous vu I'ennemi ? " he replied, 

 *' ' Non, iln'a pas ose paraitre.' Les Chinois nous repetaient partout 

 que nous marchions a une mort certaine et inutile. ' Que ferez-vous,' 

 nous disaient-ils, ' centre des monstres marins ? lis vivent dans 

 I'eau comme des poissons ; quand on s'y attend le moins, ils parais- 

 sent a la surface, et lancent des " sz-7ioi<a " * enflamm^s. Aussitot 

 qu'on bande Fare pour leur envoyer des fleches, ils se replongent 

 dans I'eau comme des grenouilles.' " 



* Their name for bombshells. 



