Not One Of This River Population Has Yet Received
Christianity.
Very little indeed is known about them and their
customs, but it is said that their morals are low, and that when
infanticide was less discouraged than it is now, the river was the
convenient grave of many of their newly-born female children.
I spent
most of one afternoon alone in one of these boats, diving into all
canals and traversing water streets, hanging on to junks and "passage
boats," and enjoying the variety of river life to the full.
On another day I was carried eighteen miles through Canton on a chair
by four coolies, Mr. Smith and his brother walking the whole
distance - a great testimony to the invigorating influences of the
winter climate. As to locomotion, one must either walk or be carried. A
human being is not a heavy weight for the coolies, but it is
distressing to see that the shoulders of very many of them are
suffering from bony tumors, arising from the pressure of the poles. We
lunched in the open air upon a stone table under a banyan-tree at the
"Five-storied Pagoda" which forms the north-east corner of the great
wall of Canton, from which we looked down upon the singular vestiges of
the nearly forgotten Tartar conquest, the walled inner city of the
Tartar conquerors, containing the Tartar garrison, the Yamun (official
residence) of the Tartar governor, the houses of the foreign consuls,
and the unmixed Tartar population.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 67 of 437
Words from 18071 to 18321
of 120530
