REMINISCENCES OF A VOYAGE TO AND FROM CHINA. 147 
directed guns, struck her colours also. This was a bloodless affair; 
and by this time the ships, being near Petro Blanco , came to anchor 
for the night. The next morning our prizes were given up to their 
respective owners: the French prize-masters and their men were dis¬ 
tributed among the crews of the three Indiamen, and were carried as 
prisoners of war to China. 
We had now entered the Chinese seas, just at the commencement of 
the Tonfoon , or stormy season. We were prepared for the worst, and 
before we had gained the middle of these seas we met a Tonfoon in 
earnest, when the ships parted company. For eight days the Triton 
lay-to under a mizen stay-sail, with topmast-yards and topmasts struck, 
the sea breaking over us every minute. When the weather moderated, 
we found ourselves on the west side of the Philippian Islands, and not 
far from Manilla. We then resumed our course towards Macoa, and 
arrived there one day before the Royal Charlotte, but one day later 
than the War ley , which ship we found at anchor in the mouth of 
Canton river. 
The first view of the coast of China is certainly very prepossessing 
to a stranger ; the general face of the country is, as far as the eye can 
reach, an almost level tract of rich alluvial land, highly cultivated, and 
intersected by numerous canals, which answer the purpose of highways 
in the “ celestial empire.” But this level is beautifully diversified by 
a great number of conical hills which are scattered over the country, 
some of which are cultivated or covered with trees to the very top. 
Whether these peaks have been raised by volcanic action, or have been 
formed by the abrasion of a superincumbent sea, we cannot say; but 
from the uniformity of their outline, and the character of their sub¬ 
stance, it is evident that they have all been formed by the same 
agent. 
We had an opportunity of going on shore a few miles up the river, 
to examine a picturesque-looking dell at the bottom of a hill, surrounded 
by lofty trees and shrubs. We found it to be an ancient quarry of 
granite, worked out with much ingenuity and labour, the whole face 
of the rock being cut into steps from the bottom to the top, so that 
blocks of any portable length and width could be had for the purpose 
of the builder without much trouble of chiselling into form. The trees 
were, Lauras sassafras and L. camphor a, intermixed with Olea fra- 
grans and many other low trees and shrubs, as the Hydrangea , Clero- 
dendrum , &c. In another day we passed the second bar, and the Bocca 
Tigris . a Chinese fort on the left bank of the river, and soon after was 
moored at Whampoa, among a great number of ships of different 
