The Barricaded Streets At
Night Have An Eerie Solemnity About Them.
One night, my present
hostess, Mrs. H., and I prowled through some of them quite unattended,
on our way
Back from a friend's dwelling, roused up the watchmen to
unlock and unbar the gates, saw no other people astir, went down one of
the water streets, hailed a boat, and were deposited close to the door
of our own abode about midnight; such an event being quite of common
occurrence in this quarter.
In the streets the roofs of the houses and shops are rarely, if ever,
regular, nor are the houses themselves arranged in a direct line, This
queer effect results from queer causes. Every Chinese house is built on
the principles of geomancy, which do not admit of straight lines, and
were these to be disregarded the astrologers and soothsayers under
whose auspices all houses are erected, predict fearful evils to the
impious builders. There are few open spaces in Canton, and these are
decorated, not with statues, but with monumental arches of brick, red
sandstone, or gray granite, which are put up as memorials of virtuous
men and women, learned or aged men, and specially dutiful sons or
daughters. Such memorials are erected by citizens, and, in some cases,
by Imperial sanction or decree.
The public buildings and temples, though they bear magnificent names,
are extremely ugly, and are the subjects of slow but manifest decay,
while the streets of shops exceed in picturesqueness everything I have
ever seen.
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