194 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. XI. 
and fro. I stopped too, and looked down upon the gay 
and happy throng, with a feehng of secret triumph when 
I remembered that I was now in the most fashionable 
city of the Celestial Empire, where no Englishman, as 
far as I knew, had ever been before. None of the 
loiterers on the bridge appeared to pay the slightest 
attention to me, by which I concluded that I must be 
very much like one of themselves. How surprised they 
would 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 as a moat as well as for commercial pur- 
poses. Here, as at Cading and Ta-tsong-tseu, a large 
number of invalided 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 beautiful 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 
