Page:Inside Canton.djvu/37

36 into the old or Tartar city, and the new or Chinese city. The suburbs, which, like the boulevards in Paris, are the best, handsomest, richest, and most commercial part of Canton, occupy on the south and west the ground between the Tchou-kiang and the walls of the two fortified cities, and on the east, where they lose their importance, some low and muddy land, on which are scattered a few huts. A wall which runs parallel with the river cuts in two the quadrilateral figure in which the official city is enclosed. The Tartar town, which is three times as large as the part called the Chinese town, lies to the north. Later, we shall see that this separation is owing to the minute precautions of a jealous policy.

These twin cities communicate together, and with the immense suburbs, by sixteen gates made in the walls. These sixteen openings are strictly guarded. It is in this double enclosure that the civil and military authorities reside, and entrance is formally denied to barbarians. When you look down from an elevated point on to the inhabited river and immense city, you are struck by the magnificence of the panorama. After having wandered over fertile plains, and after having fatigued itself by following the windings of Tchou-kiang, the moving dwellings of which are confused with the elegant buildings in the suburbs, the eye rests on the curved roofs of the two official cities. From the midst of this mass of houses,