into a filthy city, full of a seething, dirty population, and where smells and sights of the most disgusting description meet you at every turn.  People who have seen many Chinese cities say that Canton is the cleanest of them all.  What the dirtiest must be like is therefore beyond my imagination.  The suburbs of the city, where all sorts of cheap eating-shops abound—­where the butchers and fishmongers expose the most untempting-looking morsels for sale, and where there are hampers of all sorts of nasty-looking compounds, done up ready for the buyer of the smallest portion to take home—­are especially revolting.  The Chinese, however poor, like several courses to their meals, which are served in little bowls on a small table to each person, and eaten with chop-sticks, as in Japan.  It is to gratify this taste that what we should think a very minute fish, or a tiny chicken, is cut up into half-a-dozen pieces and sold to several purchasers.

The Chinese are very fond of fish, and are most ingenious in propagating, rearing, and keeping them.  The dried-fish and seaweed shops are not at all picturesque or sweet-smelling, especially as all the refuse is thrown into the streets in front.  Men go about the streets carrying pails of manure, suspended on bamboo poles across their shoulders, and clear away the rubbish as they go.  I was very glad when we got through all this to the better part of the town, and found ourselves in a large shop, where it was cool, and dark, and quiet.

The streets of the city are so narrow, that two chairs can scarcely pass one another, except at certain points.  The roofs of the houses nearly meet across the roadway, and, in addition, the inhabitants frequently spread mats overhead, rendering the light below dim and mysterious.  Every shop has a large vermilion-coloured board, with the name of its occupant written in Chinese characters, together with a list of the articles which he sells, hung out in front of it, so that the view down the narrow streets is very bright and peculiar.  These highways and byways are not unlike the bazaars at Constantinople and Cairo, and different wares are also sold in different localities after the Eastern fashion.  This is, in some respects, a great advantage, as, if you are in search of any particular article, you have almost an unlimited choice of whatever the town has to offer.  But, on the other hand, if you want a variety of articles, it is an inconvenient arrangement, as you have to go all over the place to find them, and probably have to visit the most opposite quarters.  We saw thousands of china vases, and bowls, and tea and dinner services, some very handsome, but many extremely poor.  There were a few specially made for the French Exhibition next year, which were exceedingly handsome.  We visited an ivory shop, and saw some splendid specimens of carving.  One man had been for fifteen months employed in carving on one side of an enormous elephant’s tusk the representation of a battle scene, and on the other that of a thanksgiving procession.  It will take him at least another year to finish the job.  It is for the Paris Exhibition.  It will be quite interesting to look for our old Japanese and Chinese friends and their products on that occasion.