432 AVOYAGETO 



'779- Canton to confine his curiofity. I fhould otherwifc have felt 



December. 



exceedingly tantalized with living under the walls of fo 

 great a city, full of objects of novelty, without being able 

 to enter it. The account given of this place by Peres le 

 Comte and Du Halde, are in every one's hand. The au- 

 thors have lately been accufed of great exaggeration by M. 

 Sonncrat ; for which reafon the following obfervations, 

 collected from the information with which I have been 

 obligingly furniflied by feveral Englilh. gentlemen, who 

 were a long time refident at Canton, may not be unaccept- 

 able to the Public. 



Canton, including the old and new town, and the fub- 

 urbs, is about ten miles in circuit. With refpect to its po- 

 pulation, if one may judge of the whole, from what is feen 

 in the fuburbs, I mould conceive it to fall confiderably fhort 

 of an European town of the fame magnitude. Le Comte 

 cftimatcd the number of inhabitants at one million five 

 hundred thoufand ; Du Haldc at one million; and M. Son- 

 ncrat fays he has ascertained them to be no more than 

 feventy-five thoufand*: but, as this gentleman has not fa- 

 voured us with the grounds on which his calculation was 

 founded ; and, befides, appears as defirous of depreciating 

 every thing that relates to the Chinefc, as the Jefuits may 

 be of magnifying, his opinion certainly admits of fome 

 doubt. The following circumftanccs may perhaps lead the 

 reader to form a judgment with tolerable accuracy on this 

 fubject. 



* J'ai vtrifii moi-meme, avee plufieurs ChTnois, la population de Canton, 

 \:i!lc do Tartare, & de celle de Battaux, &c. dux Indei, &c. Par Al. Sop- 



n°rat, Tom. II. p. 14. 



A Chinefe 



