Page:Inside Canton.djvu/38

Rh the polygonal towers of two pagodas rise like natural obelisks carved by the hand of time.

Now that the reader has, I hope, an approximate idea of the form and position of the capital of the two Kuangs—that is, of the three populations established on dry land—we will go through its innumerable streets. At the same time, I must inform my travelling companion that we shall not really leave the suburbs: we shall remain upon the legitimate soil. We will not overstep the limits which the distrustful jealousy of the Chinese has placed as a prison during the day, to European vanity. It is intentionally that I use the expression of "prison during the day;" for, during the night, our conceited countrymen first of all are shut up in a ghetto, like the Jews of the middle ages, and could not leave it without danger. They are incessantly menaced by the populace of the suburbs. These inhabitants of dry land have nothing in common with the polite and kind hosts of the floating-houses on the Tchou-kiang; they are a mob of rogues from Fo-kien and Kuang-ton, filled with hatred and envy. Nothing guarantees a stranger from the attacks of these wretches: the caprice of the moment, the wind which blows, a bad humour, are the only motives of their actions.

These idiots, who like you to visit their fortifications and temples, who, without any evil intention,