Imagine half the population of the United States packed into the single state of Missouri and an idea of the situation will be obtained, for with an area almost equal to that of Missouri, Shantung has no less than 38,247,900 inhabitants. It is the most densely populated part of China. But the Province of Shan-si is as thickly settled as Hungary. Fukien and Hupeh have about as many inhabitants to the square mile as England. Chih-li is as populous as France and Yun-nan as Bulgaria.
The density of China's population may be better realized by a glance at the following detailed comparison between the population of Chinese provinces and the population of similar areas in the United States:
Area
Provinces Square miles Population
Hupeh, 71,410 35,280,685
Ohio and Indiana 76,670 5,864,720
Honan, 67,940 35,316,800
Missouri, 68,735 2,679,184
Cheh-kiang, 36,670 11,580,692
Kentucky, 40,000 1,858,635
Kiang-si, 69,480 26,532,125
Kentucky and Tennessee, 81,750 3,626,252
Kwei-chou, 67,160 7,650,292
Virginia and West Virginia, 64,770 2,418,774
Yun-nan, 146,680 12,324,574
Michigan and Wisconsin, 111,880 3,780,769
Fukien, 46,320 22,876,540
Ohio, 40,760 3,762,316
Chih-li, 115,800 20,937,000
Georgia, 50,980 1,837,353
Shantung, 55,970 38,247,900
New England, 62,000 4,700,945
Shan-si, 81,830 12,200,456
Illinois, 56,000 3,826,85l
Shen-si, 75,270 8,450,182
Nebraska, 76,840 1,058,910
Kan-su, 125,450 10,385,376
California, 155,980 1,208,130
Sze-chuen, 218,480 68,724,890
Ohio, Ind., Ill., Ky., 173,430 11,350,219
Ngan-hwei, 54,810 23,670,314
New York, 47,600 5,997,853
Klang-su, 38,600 13,980,235
Pennsylvania, 44,985 5,258,014
Kwan-tung and Hainan, 99,970 31,865,251
Kansas, 81,700 1,427,096
Kwang-si, 77,200 5,142,330
Minnesota, 79,205 1,301,826
Hunan, 83,380 22,169,673
Louisiana, 45,000 1,110,569
Perhaps the most thoroughly typical city in China is Canton. The approach by way of the West River from Hongkong gives the traveller a view of some of the finest scenery in China. The green rice-fields, the villages nestling beneath the groves, the stately palm-trees, the quaint pagodas, the broad, smooth reaches of the river reflecting the glories of sunset and moon- rises and the noble hills in the background combine to form a scene worth journeying far to see.
But Canton itself is unique among the world's great cities, and the most sated traveller cannot fail to find much that will interest him. After much journeying in China, we thought we had seen its typical places, but no one has seen China until he has visited Canton. With an estimated population of 1,800,000, it is the metropolis of the Empire. The number of people per acre may be less than in some parts of the East Side in New York, for the houses are only one story in height. But the crowding is amazing. The streets are mere alleys from four to eight feet wide, lined with open-front shops, so filled overhead with perpendicular signs and cross coverings of bamboo poles and mattings that they are in as perpetual shade as an African forest, and so choked with people that men often had to back into a shop to let our chairs pass. No wheeled vehicle can enter those corkscrew streets and we saw no animal of any kind save two cows that were being led to slaughter.
And the hubbub! Such shouting and yelling cannot be heard anywhere else in the world. Our chair coolies were in a constant state of objurgation in clearing a way. Everybody seemed to be bellowing to everybody else and when two chairs met, the din shattered the atmosphere. A foreigner excites a surprising amount of curiosity, considering the number that visit Canton. Troops of boys followed us and there was a good deal of what sounded like cat-calling. But it was all good- natured, or appeared to be.
The unpretentious shop-fronts often beckon to mysteries that are well worth penetrating—tobacco factories where coolies stamp the leaves with bare feet; tea, gold, dye and embroidery shops where designs of exquisite delicacy are exhibited; silk- weaving factories where fine fabrics are made on the simplest of looms; feather shops where breastpins and other ornaments are made of tiny bits of feathers on a silver base—a work requiring almost incredible nicety of vision and such strain upon the eyes that the operators often become blind by forty. Another curiosity is a shop where crickets are reared for fighting as the Filipino fights cocks and the Anglo-Saxon fights dogs. The Chinese gamble on the result and a good fighting cricket is sometimes sold for $100. The attendant put a couple in a jar for our alleged amusement and they began fighting fiercely. But I promptly stopped the melee as I did not enjoy such sport.
The river is one of the sights of China. It is crowded with boats of all sizes. The owner of each lives on it with his family, the babies having ropes tied to them so that if they tumble into the water, they can be pulled out.
Altogether, it is a remarkable city. Viewed from the famous Five-Story Pagoda, on a high part of the old city wall, it is a swarming hive of humanity. As one looks out on those myriads of toiling, struggling, sorrowing men and women, he is conscious of a new sense of the pathos and the tragedy of human life. If I may adapt the words of the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs on the heights above Naples, at the Church of San Mar- tino, on the way to St. Elmo—I suppose that every one who has ever stood on the balcony of that lofty pagoda ``has noticed, as I remember to have noticed, that all the sounds coming up from that populous city, as they reached the upper air, met and mingled on the minor key. There were the voices of traffic, and the voices of command, the voices of affection and the voices of rebuke, the shouts of sailors, and the cries of itinerant venders in the street, with the chatter and the laugh of childhood; but they all came up into this incessant moan in the air. That is the voice of the world in the upper air, where there are spirits to hear it. That is the cry of the world for help.''[3]