Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/112

 108 Ling-Nam.

we come to the city of Sz-ui, which presents a long extent of wall running beside the river, The space -enclosed is broad but unattractive, the houses being low and insignificant, and most of them poorly built. Colonies of cranes have appropriated some large trees in the centre of the city, and keep-up a croaking kind of conversation, not unpleasant to listen to. The whole of the business quarter is outside the wall’to the west and north, where several busy streets extend along a small_creek filled with boats, which bring down produce from an extensive valley tothe north. A chapel opened, by the Baptist Mission is the beginning of good influences among the people, who have hitherto been rather bitter in their opposition to Christianity. A vaccination hospital, with a large sign, reading “Yeung-t’ow-kook,” indicates progress in another line. The people are rather rude, and speak with a peculiar and very pronounced rustic accent. The women wear immense bamboo hats, with crowns like cones, that come to a point about six inches high. The Hakka are gradually filling the more hilly parts of the district, and any variation from the local patois in the conversation heard is due to the Hakka dialect. .

A very fine variety of orange, known as the Sz-ui-kom, is produeed in this district. The smooth, thin, non-adher- ent rind encloses a juicy pulp of very superior flavour. These oranges are widely sought, and the finest sent as tribute to the emperor.

One mile above Sz-ui, and connected by a good road along the river, lighted at night by a line of lamps placed on posts, is the town of Tsong-kong, a lumber mart, where great rafts of bamboo and pine timber spread out