Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/309

 Early on the evening of the 5th, a light wind sprang up from the sou’west and we weighed anchor and made sail for Canton. Shortly after making Macao, we were boarded by a Chinese pilot, who brought us up to  our anchorage at Wampo. Here we lay eighteen days. This was the sickly time of the year for this region. Consequently, each morning, at daylight, all hands had a tot (a wineglass) of garlic bitters (garlic steeped in  gin), and at sunrise, a half-pint of strong Java coffee. We were also warned by the captain not to drink any samshoe, a native liquor. The ship was discharged of her assorted freight, and we took on a cargo of teas, mace, and silks, which were stowed away in the hold by a Chinese stevedore and his gang of Chinamen. While lying here we took the opportunity to cut three feet from our  lower masts, to turn in and set up the lower rigging  back-stays, and to do other necessary work. Each watch had thirty-six hours’ liberty to go to Canton, which was  about sixteen miles from Wampo, up the Canton River. The favorite resort in Canton for sailors was Hog Lane and vicinity. As soon as we had arrived in the lane the shopkeepers began to banter us for our names, which  they wished to use as signs over the doors of their shops. The following are some of the names we saw: George Washington, Johnny Bull, Johnny Crapo, Portuguese Joe,  Big Dick, Jim Crow, Jimmy Ducks, and many others too  numerous to mention. In many of the shops were notices of "Boston crackers, both hard and soft." Another bore the sign of "Simmons’ Oak Hall, North Ann Street, Boston, — the cheapest place in the world to buy  clothing." The venders of cat, rat, and dog pies,