380 Voyage of the Novara, 



mountains, constitute a lovely landscape. Above the limit 

 of vegetation of the foliage trees, are seen on the slopes 

 of the mountain groups of pines, while the level ground at 

 the bottom of the valley is laid out in smiling rice fields. 

 The miserable inhabitants of the village, which looks gloomily 

 out from among the trees, are not safe from the predatory 

 onslaughts of ferocious pirates, even among the recesses of 

 the valley. The streets of the village, hidden between trees, 

 are uncommonly narrow, so that two men can scarcely pass 

 each other, and the huts are all placed on purpose close 

 against each other, in order, we were told, to be able more 

 easily to admit of defence. Our rambles were rewarded 

 with an abundant collection of specimens, and were par- 

 ticularly instructive in a geognostical point of view, as satis- 

 fying us that the island does not consist entirely of granite, 

 but that a large proportion of the mountain is porphyritic. 



Another excursion was made by the Commodore and some 

 of his staff as far as Canton. The Commandant of the station. 

 Commodore Stewart, had for this purpose placed the gun- 

 boat Algerine at our disposal. The distance from Hong-kong 

 to Canton is about 87 nautical miles (100 statute miles), 

 and the voyage took full eleven hours, viz. from 6.30 a.m. to 

 5.30 p.m. 



Canton, the third capital of the Chinese Empire, and its 

 most flourishing commercial city, which but a short time be- 

 fore had numbered about 1,000,000 inhabitants, was at this 

 period a desolate, almost entirely abandoned mass of houses, 



