34^ Journal of Travel and Natural History 



EXCURSIONS IN THE SOUTH OF CHINA. 



By Lieut. Oliver, Royal Artillery. 

 NO. I. — A VISIT TO SHAO-K'iNG-FU AND THE MARBLE ROCKS. 



ON December the 5th, i860, Baron Gros, the French pleni- 

 potentiary arrived at Canton from the North, with the 

 copy of the treaty of Tientsin in his portmanteau, and the next 

 morning peace was proclaimed to the city in all due form. How 

 glad the European garrison on the heights were to learn the news 

 need not be said, for they had been long cooped up within a 

 small compass, with few amusements and sickness rife in the can- 

 tonments ; so that it was a great relief to every one to hear that 

 now all restriction to excursions into the country was removed ; 

 and shortly after a small party, of which I formed one, determined 

 to pay a long contemplated visit to Shao-K'ing-(Fu), the antient 

 capital of the two Kwangs, distant from Canton about 80 miles up 

 the Si-Kiang or West River. 



As this was to be an expedition by water, the first thing was 

 to hire a boat in which we could travel comfortably, and we soon 

 arranged for the hire of a faitan or fast boat, for an eight days' journey 

 to Shao-K'ing-(Fu) and back. As trade and communication are 

 chiefly carried on throughout China by means of water, all sorts of 

 travelling boats are built for the purpose. The one hired on this oc- 

 casion was called the Old Dragon (an appropriate name as far as the 

 adjective went), which was a fine flat-bottomed barge, 70 feet in 

 length, and with great beam in proportion, with one mast stepped 

 well forward, and the customary high stern, with its accompanying 

 huge sweep used for both sculling and steering. All our prepara- 

 tions having been completed we were towed across the river, 

 here called Starling Reach, to the Fatee creek, one of those 

 numerous tidal streams that permeate the vast delta of Kwangtung 

 (Canton), through which the local mariners know various short 

 cuts, and our faitan slowly threaded its way through the narrow 

 water-way barely left open between the innumerable crafts, junks, 

 faitans, sampans, and rafts, which frequent the populous suburbs 

 on either bank. It was about noon, under a blazing sun, that we 

 passed Houequa's garden on Gough Island, one of the noted show 

 places about Canton. All about here is a waterside population, 



