aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

CHINA. 139
compelled by law to carry a hand-lamp, if traversing the
streets after seven o'clock.
Only a portion of the women—
the better classes — have small feet. These, in walking,
simply waddle as though lame. They think it graceful.
After visiting the Chinese temples, hospitals, foundling
institutions, and riding upon men's shoulders in sedanchairs,
— a method of locomotion to us as distasteful as unnatural,
— we took the steamer for Canton. The native name
is
Yang-ChinQy meaning "the city of rams;" but from subsequent
mythological circumstances connected with the wise
men of the past, and their communion with the gods, it now
signifies " the city of genii." Thronging with a population
of over a million, it numbers less than two hundred foreigners.
The city is situated on the Pearl River, up the country
some ninety miles from Hong Kong. The river, wide,
muddy, and moderate, reminding one of the lazy Missouri,
flows into the bay at Hong Kong, just under the shadow of
Victoria Peak, a mountainous point, towering up nearly two
thousand feet above the level of the sea. The flat lands all
along this river were covered with rice-fields, banana plantations,
ly-chee trees laden with ripening fruit, peach-orchards
full of promise, and banyan shrubbery, more ornamental in
this latitude than useful. Odd-looking villages, lying a little
distance away, dotted the river valley. These are more
noted for compactness and bustle, than cultivation or beauty.
The most important of these minor cities, commercially considered,
is
Whampoa, — virtually the port of Canton, — being
just at the head\of navigation for heavily-laden vessels.
Seen from the steamer, agriculture and architecture seemed
decidedly primitive. The buildings were generally one story
high, and covered with tiles, — no glass in the windows, nor
gardens in front of them. Back in the fields, men and
women were plowing their half-submerged rice-lands with
water-buffaloes. These huge, hairless creatures are considerably
larger than our wild droves of the West. Butter
made from their milk is white as lard. These buffalo-cows,