How wonderfully those women guided their boat! They are wonderful watermen, the sampan women of Canton. We were jammed among some hundreds of other boats, and our position seemed inextricable and perilous. But it was neither the one nor the other. In and out they pulled, away from the steamer, up the narrow water-way that stretches between Canton and Sha-mien, until they landed us at the steps of the Sha-mien hotel. Then Sarah did lift me out on to terra firma, to the great delight of my disrespectful husband. “Little girl,” she said patronisingly, “but plenty heavy.”
Europeans are not allowed to live in Canton. Even to go into Canton they must have a pass or permit, which must be shown to the guards at the city gate. Sha-mien is the European concession. There live all the Occidentals who have diplomatic or other business at Canton. They are only a handful—the European permanent residents at Sha-mien; eighty odd, I think, they numbered when we were there—all told I mean; men, women and children. They live with their lives in their hands. The moral force of Europe is great, but if the Cantonese become vicious enough, they will rally across that narrow bridge and massacre every European in Sha-mien. They have done it before; they will do it again, if they grow angry enough. I hope that they never may. It is to be hoped that they will be given no cause.
The hotel was a pleasant, clean, white place. It stood upon green grass among green trees. A pretty little donkey came and begged a biscuit from me. It was the pet of Europe in Sha-mien. Our bills were profusely displayed in the hotel hall. They made me shudder a bit, for our recital was to be that night.
“Do you know yet what you are going to recite to-night?” asked my husband meanly.
“I think we’ll cut my recitations out,” I said sweetly.
“No we won’t,” said my husband. He even offered to accompany me up to our rooms and try to teach me some recitations; but I refused flatly. When the night came, I would get through it in some desperate fashion. But now I was going into Canton.
Canton lay just across the canal. It was walled, as almost every Chinese city is. We could catch no glimpse of the city itself from Sha-mien. That made me the more impatient to be off.
There are at least three wonders in the East that can never be exaggerated: the Taj Mahal, sunrise on the Himalayas, and Canton.
I forget our guide’s name—we could not go into Canton without a guide; but he appeared very much of a gentleman and spoke accurate English. We went into quaint box-like palanquins. There were four chairs, two for us, one for our Editor, and one for the guide. Three coolies carried each chair. Across the bridge; through the guarded gateway: We were in Canton!
If I could describe it as perfectly as I remember it! I had expected noise and crowds, new sights, new sounds, new smells, long endless streets, and tall, tall houses. But what I found was ten times more. The streets were often so narrow that, if two chairs wished to pass, one had to retreat into the nearest shop until the other had gone on. The houses were so tall that they seemed to lean toward each other and to touch at the vertical point of sight. Indeed many of them did almost meet—they were so built out with balconies. I don’t know what was in the upper rooms of those houses; but certainly everything appeared to be on the balconies. What clothing a poor or middle-class Chinaman possesses beyond that on his back usually hangs on his balcony. The Chinese have more cleanliness than they are accredited with by the generality of Europeans.