who had suggested the photographing. And this though
vessel and crew could have been blown in cigarette-ash in ten minutes!

But no one pirated the _Ho-nam_, though the passengers did their best to
set her on fire by upsetting the lamps of their opium pipes. She blared
her unwieldy way across the packed shipping of the harbour and ran into
grey mist and driving rain. When I say that the scenery was like the
West Highlands you will by this time understand what I mean. Large screw
steamers, China pig-boats very low in the water and choked with
live-stock, wallowing junks and ducking sampans filled the waterways of
a stream as broad as the Hughli and much better defended so far as the
art of man was concerned. Their little difficulty with the French a few
years ago has taught the Chinese a great many things which, perhaps, it
were better for us that they had left alone.

The first striking object of Canton city is the double tower of the big
Catholic Church. Take off your hat to this because it means a great
deal, and stands as the visible standard of a battle that has yet to be
fought. Never have the missionaries of the Mother of the Churches
wrestled so mightily with any land as with China, and never has nation
so scientifically tortured the missionary as has China. Perhaps when
the books are audited somewhere else, each race, the White and the
Yellow, will be found to have been right according to their lights.

I had taken one fair look at the city from the steamer, and threw up my
cards. "I can't describe this place, and besides, I hate Chinamen."

"Bosh! It is only Benares, magnified about eight times. Come along."

It was Benares, without any wide streets or chauks, and yet darker than
Benares, in that the little skyline was entirely blocked by tier on tier
of hanging signs,--red, gold, black, and white. The shops stood on
granite plinths, pukka brick above, and tile-roofed. Their fronts were
carved wood, gilt, and coloured savagely. John knows how to dress a
shop, though he may sell nothing more lovely than smashed fowl and
chitterlings. Every other shop was a restaurant, and the space between
them crammed with humanity. Do you know those horrible sponges full of
worms that grow in warm seas? You break off a piece of it and the worms
break too. Canton was that sponge. "Hi, low yah. To hoh wang!" yelled
the chair-bearers to the crowd, but I was afraid that if the poles
chipped the corner of a house the very bricks