96 
TUNG-CHOW. 
Shut up in our tomb-like vehicles, we could see little that was not 
straight before us, but that little in a good measure satisfied our 
curiosity. The interior of the city, of all the places which I ever 
beheld, was the most filthy. The rain, which fell in torrents on the 
morning of our visit, had perhaps rendered it more so than usual ; 
but heaps of dirt, which every where strewed its streets, marked 
their usual uncleanliness. In one lane the horses were knee-deep in 
mud, and the bottoms of the Commissioners’ chairs touched its sur- 
face. The smells which arose from these sources were sufficiently 
noisome in themselves, but received an increase of offensiveness from 
the peculiar odours which were thrown off by numerous cook-shops 
that lined our road, aided perhaps by the dead animals, too closely 
resembling cats and dogs, which hung in their front. 
Tung-Chow is similar in the general arrangement of its streets to 
Tien-sing ; but in the cleanliness of the houses, and the appearance 
of its inhabitants, is much inferior to it. To Captain Cooke, who was 
on horseback, and had better opportunities of observation than 
those who travelled in carts, I am indebted for the following remarks 
on its walls and gates. “ To reach the outer wall we passed over a 
bridge thrown across a ditch of sufficient width and depth, if kept 
clear, to form a considerable obstacle to besiegers. The wall appeared 
to be from sixty to seventy feet high, and judging from the length of 
its arched gateway, fifty feet thick. When beyond this, we passed 
another at right angles to it, in a second wall of about thirty feet in 
thickness. The gates were of wood, seven or eight inches thick. 
There were numberless embrasures in the walls and gateways for 
arrows or musquetry : I saw no great guns.” 
For two or three days after our visit, communications took place 
between His Excellency and the Duke, the result of which was only 
known to the diplomatic part of the Embassy. But the movements 
of the Chinese soldiers, and the report of a person in the Embassy 
being obnoxious to the Chinese government, kept us in a state of 
uneasy feeling. The guards round our quarters were doubled, and a 
