Viewing Canton From The "Five-Storied Pagoda," Or From The Dignified
Elevation Of A Pawn Tower, It Is Apparent That It Is Surrounded By A
High Wall, Beyond Which Here And There Are Suburban Villages, Some
Wealthy And Wood-Embosomed, Others Mean And Mangy.
The river divides it
from a very populous and important suburb.
Within the city lies the
kernel of the whole, the Tartar city, occupied by the garrison and a
military colony numbering about twenty thousand persons. This
interesting area is walled round, and contains the residence of the
Tartar General, and the consulates of the great European Powers. It is
well wooded and less closely built than the rest of Canton. Descending
from any elevation one finds oneself at once involved at any and every
point in a maze of narrow, crowded streets of high brick and stone
houses, mostly from five to eight feet wide. These streets are covered
in at the height of the house roofs by screens of canvas matting, or
thin boards, which afford a pleasant shade, and at the same time let
the sunbeams glance and trickle among the long, pendent signboards and
banners which swing aloft, and upon the busy, many-colored, jostling
throng below.
Every street is paved with large slabs of granite, and under each of
the massive foot-ways (for carriage-ways there are none) there is a
drain for carrying off the rain-water, which is then conveyed into six
large culverts, from them into four creeks which intersect the city,
and thence into the river.
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