Page:Ports of the world - Canton (1920).djvu/36

 ruffles, buckled shoes, and rapiers; or coonskin caps, leather coats, and leggings with buckskin fringes, moccasins, and carrying powder horns and long squirrel rifles—Daniel Boone style.

 

HE traveler steps into his sedan chair, which is promptly lifted to the shoulders of the sturdy coolies, and he begins his journey through the native districts of Canton via the same bridge over which he passed on his trip to the island of Shameen.

Visitors occasionally venture into Canton afoot, but seldom repeat the experience, inasmuch as many of the natives on the streets are stripped to the waist, and since the pedestrian is invariably jostled about in the narrow streets he finds his clothing the worse for wear after it has been in contact with the bodies of the half-naked Chinese.

The change from the wide thoroughfares, shaded by tamarind trees, of Shameen to the narrow evil-smelling streets and alleys of Canton is depressing for the traveler sensitive to odors: but the trip will have its redeeming features, for he will view sights more weird on his journey about that city than he viewed on his cruise up the muddy waters of the Chukiang River.

The traveler is prepared for one of the strangest of his many experiences in this city by the Chukiang River. Hardly is the trip through the heart of Canton begun when it is halted by the interruption of traffic on the street over which the coolies are proceeding, and by the now familiar clatter of gongs and the wail of oriental voices—some weak, some strong, some tearful, and some joyful.

A word of inquiry brings the answer that a funeral procession is passing through the streets, that all traffic is halted out of respect for the dead. The interruption of traffic appears, from an American viewpoint, to be the only mark of respect for the dead, inasmuch as the mourners conduct themselves in a manner