like a fan over two provinces, we come to the
viceregal capital, as Canton deserves to be called, though the
viceroy actually resides in another city. The river is alive with
steamboats, large and small, mostly under the British flag; but
native craft of the old style have not yet been put to flight.
Propelled by sail or oar, the latter creep along the shore; and at
Pagoda Anchorage near the city they form a floating town in which
families are born and die without ever having a home on _terra
firma_.

Big-footed women are seen earning an honest living by plying the
oar, or swinging on the scull-beam with babies strapped on their
backs. One may notice also the so-called "flower-boats," embellished
like the palaces of water fairies. Moored in one locality, they
are a well-known resort of the vicious. In the fields are
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the tillers of the soil wading barefoot and bareheaded in mud and
water, holding plough or harrow drawn by an amphibious creature
called a carabao or water-buffalo, burying by hand in the mire
the roots of young rice plants, or applying as a fertiliser the
ordure and garbage of the city. Such unpoetic toils never could
have inspired the georgic muse of Vergil or Thomson.

The most picturesque structure that strikes the eye as one approaches
the city is a Christian college--showing how times have changed.
In 1850 the foreign quarter was in a suburb near one of the gates.
There I dined with Sir John Bowring at the British Consulate, having
a letter of introduction from his American cousin, Miss Maylin, a
gifted lady of Philadelphia. There, too, I lodged with Dr. Happer,
who by the tireless exertions of many years succeeded in laying
the foundations of that same Christian college. For him it is a
monument more lasting than brass; for China it is only one of many
lighthouses now rising at commanding points on the seacoast and
in the interior.

In passing the Fati, a recreation-ground near the city, a view
is obtained of the amusements of the rich and the profligate. We
see a multitude seated around a cockpit intent on a cock-fight; but
the cocks are quails, not barnyard fowls. Here, too, is a smaller
and more exclusive circle stooping over a pair of crickets engaged
in deadly combat. Insects of other sorts or pugnacious birds are
sometimes substituted; and it might be supposed that the people
must be warlike in their disposition, to enjoy such spectacles.
The fact is, they are fond of fighting b