love of the sea in his
blood, by these pile dwellings combines security from his foe and
proximity to his familiar field of activity. The same objects are
achieved by white traders on the west coast of Africa by setting up
their dwellings and warehouses on the old hulks of dismasted vessels,
which are anchored for this purpose in the river mouths. They afford
some protection against both fever and hostile native, and at the same
time occupy the natural focus of local trade seeking foreign exchanges.

[Sidenote: River dwellers in populous lands.]

When advancing civilization has eliminated the need for this form of
protection, water-dwellers may survive or reappear in old and
relatively over-populated countries, as we find them universally on the
rivers of China and less often in Farther India. Here they present the
phenomenon of human life overflowing from the land to the streams of the
country; because these, as highways of commerce, afford a means of
livelihood, even apart from the food supply in their fish, and offer an
unclaimed bit of the earth's surface for a floating home. Canton has
250,000 inhabitants living on boats and rafts moored in the river, and
finding occupation in the vast inland navigation of the Empire, or in
the trade which it brings to this port of the Si-kiang. Some of the
boats accommodate large families, together with modest poultry farms,
crowded together under their low bamboo sheds. Others are handsome
wooden residences ornamented with plants, and yet others are pleasure
resorts with their professional singing girls.[593] In the lakes and
swamp-bordered rivers of southern Shantung, a considerable fishing
population is found living in boats, while the land shows few
inhabitants. This population enjoys freedom from taxation and
unrestricted use of the rivers and fisheries. To vary their scant and
monotonous diet, they construct floating gardens on rafts of bamboo
covered with earth, on which they plant onions and garlic and which they
tow behind their boats. They also raise hundreds of ducks, which are
trained to go into the water to feed and return at a signal,[594] thus
expanding the resources of their river life. Bangkok has all its
business district afloat on the Menam River--shops, lumber yards,
eating-houses and merchants' dwellings. Even the street vendor's cart is
a small boat, paddled in and out among the larger junks.[595]

A far more modern type of river-dwellers is found in the "