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Article A VISIT TO CANTON. ← Page 2 of 14 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Visit To Canton.
town , her avenues of palaces with their gilded facades and delicate green trellis-work , her long streets of cottages with deal walls and roofs of bamboo—a picturesque quarter , dazzling the eye with its bright colours , stunning the ear with its noisy life and activity—fantastic as an Arabian tale or a scene upon the stage .
From this vast faubourg , which is laid out symmetrically in lines , issues every day at sunrise an immense concourse of people , to cast their nets in the river , or to cultivate the ricefields on the plain . Our steamer succeeded in making her way between the tankas which block up the approach to the quayand landed
, her passengers at the entrance of the large square , planted with trees , in the centre of which is hoisted the flag of the United States , whose consul was to be our kind host during our visit to Canton . The Chinese have never been lavish in their attention to
strangers ; and this circumspection is especially observable m the niggardly manner in which they have measured out the space allotted to the European merchants . Upon nine or ten hectares of a marshy soil , which had to be drained at a great expense , stand the vaulted warehouses and the wide front of the two-storied factories . These buildings , constructed of
granite and bricks , are divided into thirteen distinct groups by transverse streets , two of which , running at right angles to the comse of the river , " Old China-street" and New China-street , " are occupied by Chinese shops . Here are seen stored the cases and the teatrays of lacquered goods , porcelainbronzescarved ivorythe thousand objects of an
, , , exorbitant price , as well as fabulously cheap , which come from the industrious hands of the Canton workmen ; and hither we hastened , to exchange the few dollars in our pockets for some curious trifles of Chinese art . We had been assured that the moment of our arrival was peculiarly propitious to our project of making purchases ;
the approach of the new year rendering the Chinese merchants more accommodating , and lending an irresistible charm to the jingling of our dollars . A law obliges the subjects of the Celestial Empire to balance their accounts , and to wind up their affairs before the first moon of the new year shows her crescent above the horizon . At a later period of our visit to China , however , when experience had made us better acquainted with these cunning and phlegmatic tradesmen , whose patience is proof against all the vexation of delay , we learnt
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Visit To Canton.
town , her avenues of palaces with their gilded facades and delicate green trellis-work , her long streets of cottages with deal walls and roofs of bamboo—a picturesque quarter , dazzling the eye with its bright colours , stunning the ear with its noisy life and activity—fantastic as an Arabian tale or a scene upon the stage .
From this vast faubourg , which is laid out symmetrically in lines , issues every day at sunrise an immense concourse of people , to cast their nets in the river , or to cultivate the ricefields on the plain . Our steamer succeeded in making her way between the tankas which block up the approach to the quayand landed
, her passengers at the entrance of the large square , planted with trees , in the centre of which is hoisted the flag of the United States , whose consul was to be our kind host during our visit to Canton . The Chinese have never been lavish in their attention to
strangers ; and this circumspection is especially observable m the niggardly manner in which they have measured out the space allotted to the European merchants . Upon nine or ten hectares of a marshy soil , which had to be drained at a great expense , stand the vaulted warehouses and the wide front of the two-storied factories . These buildings , constructed of
granite and bricks , are divided into thirteen distinct groups by transverse streets , two of which , running at right angles to the comse of the river , " Old China-street" and New China-street , " are occupied by Chinese shops . Here are seen stored the cases and the teatrays of lacquered goods , porcelainbronzescarved ivorythe thousand objects of an
, , , exorbitant price , as well as fabulously cheap , which come from the industrious hands of the Canton workmen ; and hither we hastened , to exchange the few dollars in our pockets for some curious trifles of Chinese art . We had been assured that the moment of our arrival was peculiarly propitious to our project of making purchases ;
the approach of the new year rendering the Chinese merchants more accommodating , and lending an irresistible charm to the jingling of our dollars . A law obliges the subjects of the Celestial Empire to balance their accounts , and to wind up their affairs before the first moon of the new year shows her crescent above the horizon . At a later period of our visit to China , however , when experience had made us better acquainted with these cunning and phlegmatic tradesmen , whose patience is proof against all the vexation of delay , we learnt