I Am Now Domiciled On Shameen, A Reclaimed Mud Flat, In The Beautiful
House Belonging To The Firm Of Jardine, Matheson & Co.
This island,
which has on the one side the swift flowing Canton river, with its ever
shifting life, has on the other a canal, on which an enormous
population lives in house boats, moored stem and stern, without any
space between them.
A stone bridge with an iron gate gives access into
one of the best parts of Canton, commercially speaking; but all the
business connected with tea, silk, and other productions, which is
carried on by such renowned firms as Jardine, Matheson & Co., the
Dents, the Deacons, and others, is transacted in these handsome
dwellings of stone or brick, each standing in its tropical garden, with
a wall or ornamental railing or bamboo hedge surrounding it, but
without any outward sign of commerce at all. The settlement, insular
and exclusive, hears little and knows less of the crowded Chinese city
at its gates. It reproduces English life as far as possible, and adds a
boundless hospitality of its own, receiving all strangers who are in
any way accredited, and many who are not. A high sea-wall with a broad
concrete walk, shaded by banyan trees, runs round it, a distance of a
mile and a quarter. It is quite flat and covered with carefully kept
grass, intersected with concrete walks and banyan avenues, the tropical
gardens of the rich merchants giving variety and color.
The community at present consists of forty-five people - English,
French, and German.
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