Page:Inside Canton.djvu/64

Rh own particular cry, and each one has his own manner of attracting attention. From all these combinations of voices there results an infernal hubbub, in the midst of which the barbers are distinguished by the originality of their instrumentation. They pinch a little iron rod, the metallic sonorousness of which resembles the vibrations of a gigantic double-bass, and thus fufil the duties of accompanyists in this horrible concert.

Before the shops, at every street-corner, and along the houses, were to be seen groups of beggars, blind men keeping close to the walls and guiding themselves by a pole, jobbing tailoresses patching up and mending old clothes, and barbers shaving some decrepit old man, or curling the hair of some street fashionable. The beggars enjoy a singular privilege at Canton: they may station themselves at the door of any shop, singing and striking their pieces of bamboo against each other for hours together, while the proprietor has not the right to drive them away! These poor devils are not obliged to move off until they have received alms! A person must have undergone the torture of this singing and this discordant noise to understand the exorbitant nature of the custom; a concert of Auvergnats, and the noise of saucepans and coppers, are harmonious compared to these performers in rags. I have often, very often, seen the obstinacy of these tatterdemalions pitted against the avarice of the