Cuar. XIII] DESCRIPTION OF SOO-CHOW. 259 
have been had it been whispered to them that an 
Englishman was standing amongst them. 
The city of Soo-chow-foo, in its general features, 
is much the same as the other cities in the north, 
but is evidently the seat of luxury and wealth, and 
has none of those signs of dilapidation and decay 
- which one sees in such towns as Ning-po. A noble 
canal, as wide’ as the river Thames at Richmond, 
runs parallel with the city walls, and acts asa moat 
as well as for commercial purposes. Here, as at 
Cading and Ta-tsong-tseu, a large number of in- 
valided junks are moored, and doubtless make 
excellent Chinese dwelling-houses, particularly to a 
people so fond of living on the water. This same 
canal is carried through arches into the city, where 
it ramifies in all directions, sometimes narrow and 
dirty, and at other places expanding into lakes of 
considerable beauty ; thus enabling the inhabitants 
to convey their merchandise to their houses from 
the most distant parts of the country. Junks and 
boats of all sizes are plying on this wide and beau- 
tiful canal, and the whole place has a cheerful and 
flourishing aspect, which one does not often see in 
the other towns in China, if we except Canton and 
Shanghae. The walls and ramparts are high, and 
in excellent repair, having considerable resemblance 
to those of Ning-po, but in much better order. 
The east wall, along the side of which I went all 
the way, is not more than a mile in length, but 
the north and south are much longer, thus making 
the city a parallelogram. That part of the city 
6.2 
