where you can buy the finery of a mandarin for a dollar or two. There is Eyeglass street, where the compass is sold, and if you choose to buy a compass, there is no harm in remembering that we owe the invention of that subtle instrument to China. Another street is given to the manufacture of bows and arrows, another to Prussian blue, a third to the preparation of furs. The stores have signs in Chinese characters, gold letters on a red or black ground, which are hung in front, a foot or two from the wall, and droop before you as you pass under them, producing a peculiar effect, as of an excess of ornamentation, like Paris on a fête day. The habit to which you are accustomed in Paris of giving the store a fanciful or poetic name prevails in Canton. One merchant calls his house "Honest Gains." Another, more ambitious, names his house "Great Gains." One satisfied soul proclaims his store to be a "Never Ending Success," while his neighbor's is "Ten Thousand Times Successful." There is the store called "Ever Enduring,' and others adopt a spirit not common in trade by speaking of their shops as "Heavenly Happiness" and "By Heaven Made Prosperous." Others more practical signify by some image the nature of their trade, and over their stores you see representations of a shoe, a fan, a hat, a boot, a collar, and a pair of spectacles. We wandered about among the shops, strolling in and out, as though our interest was proprietary, always followed by the crowd. We looked at the temple in honor of virtuous women, but woman does not hold a position in China high enough for us to feel an interest in monuments to her virtue. Virtue in woman is commended very much as we commend speed in a horse, not because it ennobles and sanctifies womanhood, but because it adds to her value as a part of her husband's possessions. We stopped and looked at some workmen blowing glass. A glass vase in a rough state about six feet high was in the hands of the artificer, and although the pat of an infant would have ruined its beauty, the workman handled it as surely as though it had been iron. The manufacture of glass is an important industry in Canton. But we found our greatest pleasure in looking at the porcelain and ceramic ware, infinite in variety and beautiful, at the carved ivory and hard wood. Canton excels in this and in crape and silk. Some of the shawls and scarfs were masterpieces of texture, and especially some which had been painted and embroidered. We looked at men beating gold-leaf, and threading our way into narrow streets and out-of-the-way places found ourselves among the weavers of silk. The rooms in which the silk-looms were in operation were small and dark. We noticed cotton-weavers who were at work in the open air. The looms were primitive, and seemed to have been built for affording employment to the largest number of laborers. What Chinese labor will not stand is cheap American labor-saving machinery; and although attempts have been made to introduce it, which would enable the workman to treble the quantity of his work and the farmer to hull and clean ten times the quantity of rice, the feeling is so strong among laborers as to forbid it. Laborers here, no matter in what calling, belong to guilds or trade-unions, and any attempt to enforce a new machine or a labor-saving method of labor is resisted. All the capital in the world could not induce the silk-weavers to introduce the Jacquard loom. What would then become of the nimble-fingered lad whose business it is to pull the strings and arrange the warp before the weaver propels the shuttle? Even more interesting was the time we gave to artists in lacquer work. Lacquer work is so beautiful when finished, and in peace and glory at last on my lady's toilet-table, that it is not well to inquire too curiously into the process of its manu facture. Our artist friend sat over the finished work with his needle and brush and his chalk-powder. The powder enables him to shadow forth the design, which he paints in vermilion. Over this vermilion dust is rubbed very much as gold and silver and bronze printing is done at home, and the picture comes out at length in silver or gold. Lacquer work requires a trained hand, and as you saw the patience and skill bestowed upon his work by the artist and knew what a trifle it would bring when sold, it was disheartening. But the first thing you learn in China and the lesson is always present and always coming before you in a new shape-is the cheapness of human labor and the profusion of human life. Canton, next to Pekin, the most celebrated of Chinese cities, the one at least best known to foreigners, goes back to the fourth century before Christ, and is among the most ancient cities of the world. It was supposed to have been a muddy stockade surrounded with bamboo defences. It was called the city of rams, and Archdeacon Gray, whose book on Canton is valuable, gives a fairy legend as the origin of this appellation. "Five genii, clothed with garments of five different colors, met at the capital. Each of the rams bore in his mouth a stalk of grain having six ears, and presented them to the people of the district, to whom the genii thus spake:-May famine never visit your markets.' Having uttered these words, the genii disappeared, and the rams were turned into stone." So from that day Canton has been known as the city of the five rams or the five genii, and the five stone rams may still be seen by those who care to verify the legend. The good wish of the genii has not always been respected, for Canton has known famine and pestilence and war, and has had at times an exceptional run of ill-luck. The story of one war goes back to the second century before Christ, when the people, being in rebellion, defeated the imperial forces, and blood ran for miles. In the sixth century after the coming of our Lord there was a martial emperor whom the people sought to propitiate by sending a piece of fine cloth. In those days, as in the present, there were nimble fingers in Canton who knew how to make cloth as light and free as down. But the Emperor thought the fine cloth an evidence of effeminacy and weakness, and he forbade the manufacture of it. In the early days there was a great trade between India and China, Canton being the gateway through which most of the commerce passed. I presume that it was through Canton that the Buddhist missionaries passed when they came from the holy city of Benares to spread the subtle faith of the Lord Buddha. More than a thousand years ago the merchants of Canton had ventures on land and sea. But wild and savage princes came to the throne, and we read of wars and devastation and cruelty, which it is not useful to repeat. We are reminded too vividly of our modern civilization. But a king came some nine centuries since whose reign was marked with good omens, "all the stars flowing to the North," and with this prince came peace and tranquillity. Under him and his successors witches and wizards were suppressed, expensive ornaments were forbidden; it was not allowed to sacrifice men to propitiate demons, and wars for the annexation of territory, against Cochin China especially, were stopped. In the sixteenth century Portugal put her foot on Chinese territory. It was during that bright and evanescent period of Portuguese glory, when it seemed as if the genius of Albuquerque and the faith of Xavier would establish Portugal as master of Asia. In these days the Ming dynasty reigned, and the patriotic Chinaman will tell you, with a sigh, that the Ming days were the golden days of the Empire. Among the first ports opened to European trade as a result of the pressure of the Portuguese was Canton. CHAPTER XXXVI. GROTTO OF CAMOENS-THE -ADDRESS OF A VISIT ΤΟ MACAO-THE - During the sojourn of the travellers in China, a visit was paid to Macao, Swatow, and Amoy. The correspondent of the New York Herald writes:- We sailed down the river from Canton on the morning of the 9th and over to Macao. Macao is a peninsula on the east coast of China, within five hours' sail of Hong Kong, a distance of about forty miles. The town looks picturesque as you come to it from the sea, with that aspect of faded grandeur which adds to the beauty, if not to the interest and value, of a city. As the Ashuelot came around the point in view of Macao, a slight sea was rolling and a mist hung over the hills. As soon as our ship was made out from the shore the Portuguese battery flashed out a salute of twenty-one guns, to which the Ashuelot responded. About five o'clock we came to an anchor, and the aid of the Governor came on board to say that the illness, and we were sorry to hear, the serious illness of the Governor prevented his doing any more than sending the most cordial welcome to Macao. The General landed and drove to a hotel. In the evening he strolled about, and in the morning visited the one sight |