

CHINA. 



orery pos#i!>le sui>j : Hi-tory, chronology, moral 

 in IMIIIS, tin' l;i\vs and precepts o! ('(inhiciiis, agri- 

 culture, gardening, and all the peaceful arts, are 

 conveyed mid impressed on the memory through 

 the medium of poetry. In their more refined so- 

 ciety not to be a poet, is not to be a gentleman ; 

 and the love, if not the practice, of the poetical 

 art descends to all grades and conditions. 



The barbers, in the towns of China, go about 

 ringing bells to get customers. They carry with 

 them a stool, a basin, a towel, and a pot containing 

 lire. When any person calls them, they run to 

 him ; and planting their stool in a convenient place 

 in the street, shave the bead, clean the ears, dress 

 the eyebrows, and brush the shoulders; all for 

 tin- value of little more than a halfpenny. They 

 then ring the bell again, and start in pursuit of an- 

 other customer. 



Trade with China. Almost the whole trade of 

 foreigners with China is restricted to the single port 

 of Canton. The Spaniards have still access to the 

 port of Amoy on the eastern coast of China, but 

 the privilege is said to be merely nominal, and very 

 rarely used. The Portuguese carry on a very trifling 

 commerce at Macao, where they have been allowed 

 by the Chinese to form a settlement, subject, how- 

 ever, to great restrictions. The Russians have a 

 land-trade with China, across the desert of Middle 

 Asia, and on that account are not permitted to send 

 any ships to Canton. 



Canton is situated in lat. 23 7' 10" N., long. 

 113 14' 30" E.; and is built upon the left bank of 

 the Choo-keang, a river which flows through it in a 

 stream rather wider than the Thames at London 

 bridge, and after an additional course of thirty-two 

 miles, empties itself into a broad bay, or opening, of 

 the great sea which washes the southern provinces 

 of China. The entrance of this bay, which is some- 

 times vaguely spoken of as the mouth of the river of 

 Canton, is about eighty miles from the city : it con- 

 tains a number of small islands, among which is 

 that partly occupied by the Portuguese settlement 

 of Macao. At the head of the bay, fifty miles 

 from its entrance, is the mouth, properly speaking, 

 of the Choo-keang, or river upon which Canton 

 stands : it is formed by two projecting points of 

 land, which are little more than a musket-shot 

 apart. This narrow passage is called by Euro- 

 peans Bocca Tigris, or " Tiger's Mouth," a name 

 origi-ially given to it by the Portuguese, who were 

 the earliest traders in these parts ; in nautical 

 phrase it is sometimes styled the Bogue. Twenty 

 miles up the river is Whampoa, which may be 

 called the " road" of Canton ; foreign ships always 

 anchor there, and never ascend further, their inter- 

 course with the city for the remaining nine or ten 

 miles being conducted entirely by boats. 



Almost all Europeans at Canton carry on their 

 business with the natives through the medium of 

 the English language. Few foreigners study Chinese 

 to any extent, and those few are chiefly scholars 

 residing in Europe; but the Chinese at Canton 

 find it to their interest to pick up a smattering of 

 English, and are enabled by its means to make 

 themselves understood by Europeans ; but it is a 

 strange jargon, made up of words grievously mis- 

 pronounced, often oddly perverted from their pro- 

 per meaning, and always combined according to the 

 Chinese idiom. So extraordinary is the dialect 

 thus produced, that an Englishman on his arrival 

 at Canton understands little more of it than 'f it 

 were French or Dutch, and finds that his own un- 



contaminated English is as little understood by the 

 Chinese servant or shopkeeper. It requires a few 

 week's practice to put him on a level with the na- 

 tives, and he will then be able to speak a jargon as 

 uncouth as any Chinaman. 



The principal weights for merchandise at Canton 

 are, the pecul, the catty, and the tale, the pecul 

 being divided into one hundred catties, or one thou- 

 sand six hundred tales. The catty is equivalent 

 to one pound and one-third avoirdupois. 



There are no commercial measures in China, nil 

 dry goods and liquids being sold by weight. Even - 

 thing living or dead, organic or inorganic, is sold 

 by weight in this celestial country; whether it be 

 fruit or ballast-stones, oil or vegetables, living dogs 

 or pigs, cats or poultry, they are all purchased by 

 the catty. A Chinese does not seem to have any 

 idea of measurement, for one was asked whether 

 we should have much wind, " Yes, plenty catties 

 of wind, by, by, come ;" and when some gentlemen 

 were taking observations of the sun, the Chinese ob- 

 served upon them that "they were weighing the sun." 

 " In buying any article, however small or trifling, 

 at Canton," says Mr Reynolds, "the seller will 

 furnish you with a small paper, containing some 

 Chinese characters, which are called chops. If 

 called on by the custom-house officer, or mandarin, 

 to pay duty on these articles, you simply present 

 them with the chops, and it is their business to 

 find the merchant who sold the article, and collect 

 the revenue from him." 



The word Hong is used by the Chinese to desig- 

 nate a commercial establishment or warehouse; and 

 by this name the European factories at Canton 

 have been designated. The hongs extend along the 

 bank of the river between seven and eight hun- 

 dred feet; they extend backwards in depth a hun- 

 dred and thirty yards, into a long narrow lane, on 

 each side of which are confined the abodes of 

 foreigners. To the eastward, the line of factories 

 is bounded by a narrow ditch or inlet from the 

 river, serving to surround a portion of the cit\- 

 wall, and to drain that portion of the town. All 

 the factories communicate with the river by wooden 

 stairs, from which the tea and other commodities 

 are embarked ; and the space which they occupy is 

 traversed by three thoroughfares, leading direct 

 from the river, namely, China Street, New China 

 Street, and Hog Lane, the latter being a narrow 

 filthy passage, inhabited by low Chinese, who keep 

 spirit-shops, into which they entice the sailors, and 

 rob them. 



The Portuguese were the first Europeans who 

 traded direct to China. They visited various ports 

 of the countryfor sometime free from the competi- 

 tion of other nations; and in 1555, they appear to 

 have concentrated themselves at Macao, where 

 they established a settlement. We hear of their 

 ships frequenting the port of Canton in 1578, and 

 trading along the coast of China ; but in 1631, in 

 consequence of some disputes which had arisen with 

 the natives, they were restricted to their own set- 

 tlement at Macao. Until the year 1637, the English 

 trade with the Chinese was carried on indirectly, 

 at the factories which the East India company had 

 established in other parts of the East. In 1664, 

 the trade in tea commenced, that article being im- 

 ported to the amount of one hundred pounds. On 

 the 13th of February, the directors wrote thus to 

 Madras: " In regard thea is grown to be a com- 

 modity here, and we have occasion to make pre- 

 sents therein to our great friends at court, we 



