Some Parents Are Cautious Enough To Fasten Hollow Gourds, Or Bladders Filled With Air, On Their Children's Backs, Until They Are Six Years Old, So As To Prevent Them Sinking So Quickly, If They Should Happen To Tumble Into The Water.

All these multifarious occupations - this ceaseless activity, this never-ending bustle, form so peculiar a feature, that it is hardly possible for a person who has not been an eye-witness to obtain a correct idea of it.

It is only during the last few years that we European women have been allowed to visit or remain in the factories at Canton. I left the vessel without any apprehension; but first, I had to consider how I should find my way to the house of a gentleman named Agassiz, for whom I had brought letters of recommendation. I explained to the captain, by signs, that I had no money with me, and that he must act as my guide to the factory, where I would pay him. He soon understood me, and conducted me to the place, and the Europeans there showed me the particular house I wanted.

On seeing me arrive, and hearing the manner in which I had travelled, and the way that I had walked from the vessel to his house, Mr. Agassiz was extremely surprised, and would hardly credit that I had met with no difficulties or injury. From him I learned what risks I, as a woman, had run in traversing the streets of Canton with no escort but a Chinese guide. Such a thing had never occurred before, and Mr. Agassiz assured me that I might esteem myself as exceedingly fortunate in not having been insulted by the people in the grossest manner, or even stoned. Had this been the case, he told me that my guide would have immediately taken to flight, and abandoned me to my fate.

I had certainly remarked, on my way from the vessel to the factory, that both old and young turned back to look after me, and that they hooted and pointed at me with their fingers; the people ran out of the booths, and gradually formed a crowd at my heels. I had, however, no alternative but to preserve my countenance; I walked, therefore, calmly on, and perhaps it is to the very fact of my manifesting no fear that I escaped unmolested.

I had not intended to stop long in Canton, as, since the last war between the English and Chinese, Europeans are obliged to be more careful than ever how they show themselves in public. This hatred is more especially directed against women, as it is declared in one of the Chinese prophecies that a woman will some day or other conquer the Celestial Empire. On account of this, I entertained but slight hopes of seeing anything here, and thought of proceeding directly to the port of Shanghai, in the north of China, where, as I was informed, it was far easier to obtain access both among the nobility and lower classes.

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Words from 51818 to 52326 of 187810