Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/145

 the water around us, and for miles ahead. Many of these boats are the homes of whole families who spend their lives upon the water. Here they are born, here they eat and sleep and here they die. It is said that more than one hundred thousand people thus spend their lives upon the river and know no other home. We land near the sight of the foreign "factories," or business houses, which were all destroyed by the Chinese in 1856. After the war the government conceded a tract of several hundred acres to the foreigners for their sole occupation, which is called "Charmine." It is certainly charmingly situated along the river bank, separated from the native city by a wide canal, and laid out in grass plots and avenues of trees. Here are the flagstaffs of the foreign consuls, a neat English church, and twelve or fifteen large and stately edifices of foreign merchants, that look like palaces in contrast with the vast collection of mean, one-story houses that spread out for miles in the rear. There are altogether but about fifty Europeans and Americans in this city of over a million inhabitants. The government is weak and feeble, and in case of a popular outbreak, nothing could save them from instant destruction.

Most of the city is built on the north side of the river, and the houses seem very low and mean. The pawnbroker's establishments, large, tall, square towers, rise high above the tiled roofs, and in the very heart of the town is an immense lattice work of bamboo poles, looking like a gigantic bird cage, which I am told is the staging around the new Catholic Cathedral, commenced three years ago and yet unfinished.

We reached Canton at two o'clock, and after reporting myself at Oliphant & Co's, whose guest I was during my three days visit, for there are no hotels here. I started out to see the sights, but I could not venture into such a maze of narrow streets, where not a soul understands a word even of "pigeon English," without a guide. I found Arr-Kum, a very intelligent Chinaman, who had been in California, and speaks quite good English. I can recommend him as one of the most civil and obliging of guides. He laid out a three days programme which we afterwards carried out to the letter. Our first visit was to the great Temple of Honam one of the oldest and richest in Canton, which is located on the south or Honam side of the river. Taking a