Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/738

 728 CANTON warehouses with spacious gardens. Most of the streets are short, and are irregularly laid out, branching at all angles, and often continued through narrow gates or mere doorways. They are from 7 to 10 ft. wide, the houses often meeting across to keep out the sun. Unlike other Chinese and eastern cities, the streets are paved with flat granite blocks, and the sewer- age is concealed. The houses are generally built of dark brown brick, one or two stories high. They are without verandas, and entirely open in front, closed only by suspended bam- boo screens. The windows are small and rarely furnished with glass, paper, mica, and other transparent substances being substituted. The roofs are of unequal height, from a Chi- nese superstition that ill luck follows eaves which connect with each other in a continuous line. The roofing invariably consists of thin tiles laid in rows alternately concave and con- vex, the latter overlapping the former, and cemented with mortar. The houses contain from three to six apartments. The dwellings of the poorer classes are seldom more than mud hovels, containing but a single apartment. Stone is seldom used except about gateways. The shops are commodious and well stocked with goods. In the busy part every house is a shop ; but there are two streets, China street and New China street, mostly resorted to by foreigners, where goods from nearly all parts of the world are to be found. Eating houses are numerous, and furnish a great variety of made dishes, in which rice, pork, puppies, cats, pies, and other favorite animals of the epicures of Canton. They also recruit the piratical sampans which infest the mouth of the Can- ton river and almost every portion of the coast. New China Street. rats, and geese are the staple ingredients. About 4 m. from the city is anchored the " boat town," or the 40,000 covered river boats, which are the constant homes of 300,- 000 people called Tankia, a strange, amphibi- ous, pariah race, who subsist by fishing, carry- ing goods and passengers, and various singular occupations, such as the rearing of ducks, pup- Flower I5o;it. The Tankia fleet is a home for the city's swarm of prostitutes. Between this floating city of outcasts and the point of landing at the foreign quarter is the anchorage of the great junks engaged in foreign Asiatic trade. When a stranger of note arrives here with letters of in- troduction, he is generally received and hos- pitably entertained at the mansions of the merchants, especially the English and Ameri- can, who have commercial and dwelling es- tablishments at Macao and Hong Kong. For the accommodation of less fortunate travellers there are a couple of hotels, conducted on semi-European principles; that is, Chinese in service and filth, and European in diet. Though the Cantonese have been represented as being of all Chinese the most hostile to strangers, yet it has been the experience of intelligent trav- ellers that a courteous and cheerful deport- ment has always secured immunity from insult in visiting portions of the city distant from the foreign quarter ; and even rambles with ladies in company have been extended without mo- lestation through the country, around the for- tifications of the walled city proper. Goods are carried by coolies by means of a pole stretched across the shoulders of two or more. The narrow streets being impassable for car- riages, the only vehicles are sedan chairs, car- ried likewise by coolies. These are found in immense numbers, and offer their services at very low rates. The city is divided into quar- ters for the accommodation of divers kinds of business, almost every trade or occupation having its own separate quarter. The propri- etors of the various shops are noted for their suavity. "When not engaged within, they are seen standing in the doorways of their estab- lishments, and, in an amusing jumble of mon- grel English and Portuguese, most pertina- ciously solicit the attention of the passing foreigner. The Cantonese shopkeeper extends a liberal hospitality to his customers ; he gen- erally has a refreshing cup of tea to present, or wine and other refreshments ; and if his civili-