Chap. VIII. 
THE SIGHING WILLOW. 
119 
foreigners residing in the country, who generally prefer 
the candy reduced to powder, in which state it is very 
fine and white. I did not see our loaf-sugar in any part 
of China, and I conceive that it is not made there. ^ 
A great number of the common fruit trees of the I . 
country grow all over the plains and near the side of the | 
river. The mango, guava, wangpee (Coohia punctata), 
leechee, longan, oranges, and pumeloes, are the principal 
kinds. Besides these, there are the cypress, thuja, 
banyan and other kinds of fig-trees, and a species ofi. 
pine, called by the Chinese the water-pine, from its!' 
always growing by the sides of the rivers and canals. 
The bamboo, and a sort of weeping willow very much 
like our own, are also frequently met with. The name * ^ , 
which the Chinese give to the latter is the " sighing'' n-^*' 
willow, coinciding rather curiously with our own term of 
" weeping and when taken in connexion with the 
historical fact of the Jews weeping by the streams of 
Babylon, and hanging their harps upon the willows, 
shows that this is regarded as the emblem of sorrow, as 5 
universally as the dark and sombre pine and cypress are 
considered in all countries fit companions to the cemetery 
and churchyard. 
On the sides of the river, both below and above the 
city, large quantities of the water-lily, or lotus, are 
grown, which are enclosed by embankments in the same ' 
manner as the rice -fields. This plant is cultivated both 
as an ornament, and for the root, which is brought in 
large quantities to the markets, and of which the Chinese 
are remarkably fond. In the summer and autumn 
months, when in flower, the lotus -fields have a gay and 
