CHAPTER XX. 



CANTOK 



Strangeness of Canton — Bogue Forts— "WTiampoa — Pagodas — Approacli to 

 City — Boat Population — Pic-nic Boats — Streets of Canton — Chops — 

 Puntinqua's Garden — Fa-tee Gardens— Gold-Fish — Deformities — Diet of 

 Chinese — Dog-eating— Salt Monopoly — Unity of Chinese People — Its 

 Causes — Insurrectionary Movements — Influence of Western Civilization- 

 Benefits of Western Trade — Pekin Memorial on Western Education — 

 Proposed Introduction of Railways — Language the Great Barrier — 

 Prospects of Christianity. 



Of all the cities of China, it appears to be agreed by 

 travellers that none is more worthy of a visit than Canton. 

 Doubtless there are peculiar features in Pekin, which ren- 

 der it specially interesting. Pekin is the royal city, and the 

 great capital of the North, and situated so far apart, and 

 in so different a climate from that of Canton, that it must 

 necessarily differ greatly in character and points of interest 

 from the latter. But Canton is the great city of the South, 

 as its name implies, — and for strangeness, for wonders, for 

 novelty, it is really unique. All the numberless contra- 

 dictions of the Celestial Empire may be found here in small 

 compass — aU one's ideas of Chinese customs, architecture, 

 and modes of life, imbibed from earhest infancy, here find 

 at once their embodiment and their correction ; and while, 

 on the one hand, everything is strange and outre, on the 

 other one feels a familiarity with the details of the scene 



