Page:Ports of the world - Canton (1920).djvu/19

 P THE artery of yellow water, which runs to the China Sea from the heart of Kwangtung Province, the traveler finds the river port of Canton, where he sees many unbelievable things — unbelievable from the occidental viewpoint —even though he views them through the unclouded windows of his own inquisitive Western soul.

Canton is a city of walls and temples; narrow streets and lanes of water; flower boats and other river craft; jostling humanity and high-pitched voices; sedan chairs and perspiring coolies; native merchants and prodigal sons; foreign merchants and diplomats — an old, old city, whose lower classes think cockroaches in honey and snakes in broth a rare combination well suited to the most fastidious tastes.

Those travelers who bide a while in Hongkong before embarking on the water journey to Canton will be rewarded with a colorful glimpse of Chinese life; but the island has been under British rule for so long a time that it is more European than oriental. In Canton the reverse is true. As Hongkong is British, so Canton is Chinese—deliberately, stubbornly, patiently Chinese.

The noses in Canton have never been counted, for the Government has found it impossible to carry out a census with any degree of accuracy.