At the city of Tchao-tchoo-foo, where we arrived on the 13th, we exchanged our flat-bottomed boats for large and commodious yachts, the river being here much increased by the confluence of another stream. The boats before this city were mostly managed by young girls, whose dress consisted of a neat white jacket and petticoat and a gipsey straw hat. Having for so great a length of time scarcely ever set our eyes upon a female, except the heads of some at a distance, peeping from behind the mud walls that surround the houses, or labouring in the grounds of Kiang-see, the ferry girls, though in reality very plain and coarse-featured, were considered as the most beautiful objects that had occurred in the whole journey. To the occupation of ferrying passengers over the river it seemed they added another, not quite so honourable, for which, however, they had not only the consent and approbation of their parents, but also the sanction of the government, or perhaps, to speak more correctly, of the governing magistrates, given in consideration of their receiving a portion of the wages of prostitution.
In this mountainous district a few fishermen's huts and those of the colliers were the only habitations that occurred; but the defect of population was abundantly supplied by the number of wooden dwellings that were floating on the river. Small huts, to the number of thirty or forty, were sometimes erected upon a single floating raft of fir baulks, lashed together by the ends and the sides. On these rafts the people carry on their trade or occupation, particularly such as work in wood.
Our conductors directed the yachts to halt before a detached rock, rising with a perpendicular front from the margin of the river to the height of seven hundred feet. In this front we observed a cavern, before which was a terrace that had been cut out of the rock, accessible by a flight of steps from the river. Proceeding from the terrace into the cavity of the rock, we ascended another flight of stairs, also cut out of solid stone, which led into a very spacious apartment. In the centre of this apartment sat the goddess Poo-sa upon a kind of altar, constituting a part of the rock, and hewn into the shape of the Lien-wha or Nelumbium. A small opening, next the river, admitted a "dim religious light," suitable to the solemnity of the place, which we were told was a temple consecrated to Poo-sa, and a monastery for the residence of a few superannuated priests. On the smooth sides of the apartment was inscribed a multitude of Chinese verses, some cut into the rock, and others painted upon it. The lodgings of the priests were small caves branching out of the large temple. A third flight of steps led from this to a second story, which was also lighted by a small aperture in front, that was nearly choaked up by an immense mass of stalectite that had been formed, and was still increasing, by the constant oozing of water holding in solution calcareous matter, and suspended from a projection of the upper part of the rock. But the light was sufficient to discover a gigantic image with a Saracen face, who "grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile." On his head was a sort of crown; in one hand he held a naked scymeter, and a firebrand in the other; but the history of this colossal divinity seemed to be imperfectly known, even to the votaries of Poo-sa themselves. He had in all probability been a warrior in his day, the Theseus or the Hercules of China. The cave of the Cumæan Sibyl could not be better suited for dealing out the mysterious decrees of fate to the superstitious multitude, than that of the Quan-gin-shan, from whence the oracle of future destiny, in like manner,
"Horrendas canit ambages, antroque remugit,
Obscuris vera involvens."
"The wond'rous truths, involv'd in riddles, gave,
And furious bellow'd round the gloomy cave."
Lord Macartney observed that this singular temple brought to his recollection a Franciscan monastery he had seen in Portugal, near Cape Roxent, usually called the Cork Convent, "which is an excavation of considerable extent under a hill, divided into a great number of cells, and fitted up with a church, sacristy, refectory, and every requisite apartment for the accommodation of the miserable Cordeliers who burrow in it. The inside is entirely lined with cork: the walls, the roofs, the floors, are covered with cork; the tables, seats, chairs, beds, couches, the furniture of the chapel, the crucifixes, and every other implement, are all made of cork. The place was certainly dismal and comfortless to a great degree, but it wanted the gigantic form, the grim features, the terrific aspect which distinguish the temple of Poo-sa, in the rock of Quan-gin-shan." Dismal as this gloomy den appeared to be, where a few miserable beings had voluntarily chained themselves to a rock, to be gnawed by the vultures of superstition and fanaticism, it is still less so than an apartment of the Franciscan convent in Madeira, the walls of which are entirely covered with human skulls, and the bones of legs and arms, placed alternately in horizontal rows. A dirty lamp suspended from the ceiling, and constantly attended by an old bald-headed friar of the order, to keep the feeble light just glimmering in the socket, serves to shew indistinctly to strangers this disgusting memento mori. It would be difficult to determine which of the three were the most useless members of society, the monks of Poo-sa, the monks of the Cork convent, or the monks of Golgotha.
In several places among the wild and romantic mountains through which we were carried on this river, we noticed quarries of great extent, out of which huge stones had been cut for sepulchral monuments, for the arches of bridges, for architraves, for paving the streets, and for various other uses. To obtain these large masses, the saw is applied at the upper surface, and they work down vertically to the length required. Each stone is shaped and fashioned to the size that may be wanted, before it is removed from the parent rock, by which much difficulty is avoided and less power required in conveying it to its destination. Rude misshapen blocks, requiring additional labour for their removal, are never detached from the rock in such a state. In this respect they are more provident than the late Empress of Russia who, at an immense expense and with the aid of complicated machinery, caused a block of stone to be brought to her capital, to serve as a pedestal for the statue of the Czar Peter, where it was found expedient to reduce it to two-thirds of its original dimensions.
Between the city of Canton and the first pagoda on the bank of the river, there is a continued series of similar quarries, which appear not to have been worked for many years. The regular and formal manner in which the stones have been cut away, exhibiting lengthened streets of houses with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams; the smoothness and perfect perpendicularity of the sides, and the number of detached pillars that are scattered over the plain, would justify a similar mistake to that of Mr. Addison's Doctor of one of the German universities, whom he found at Chateau d'Un in France, carefully measuring the free-stone quarries at that place, which he had conceived to be the venerable remains of vast subterranean palaces of great antiquity.
Almost all the mountains that occurred in our passage through China were of primæval granite, some few of sand-stone, and the inferior hills were generally of lime-stone, or coarse grey marble. Except the Ladrone islands on the south, and some of the Chu-san islands on the east, we observed no appearances in the whole country of volcanic productions. The high mountains, indeed, that form great continental chains are seldom, if ever, of volcanic formation. The presence of a vast volume of water seems to be indispensably necessary to carry on this operation of nature and, accordingly, we find that volcanic mountains are generally close to the sea coast, or entirely insulated. Thus, although a great part of the islands on the coast of China are volcanic, we met with no trace of subterranean heat, either in volcanic products or thermal springs, on the whole continent. Yet earthquakes are said to have been frequently felt in all the provinces, but slight and of short duration.
About seven miles to the southward of the temple in the rock, the mountains abruptly ceased, and we entered on a wide extended plain which, to the southward and on each side, was terminated only by the horizon. This sudden transition from barrenness to fertility, from the sublime to the beautiful, from irregularity to uniformity, could not fail to please, as all strong contrasts usually do. The country was now in a high state of tillage; the chief products were rice, sugar-canes, and tobacco; and the river was so much augmented by the tributary streams of the mountains, which we had just left behind, that it was nearly half a mile in width. Canals branched from its two banks in every direction. At the city of San-shwee shien, we observed the current of the river receding, being driven back by the flux of the tide.
On the 10th, we halted before a village which was just within sight of the suburbs of Canton. Here the Embassador was met by the Commissioners of the East India Company, whom the Chinese had allowed to proceed thus far from the factory, and to which place the servants of the Company are occasionally permitted to make their parties of pleasure. In the neighbourhood of this village are extensive gardens for the supply of the city with vegetables. In some we observed nurseries for propagating the rare, the beautiful, the curious, or the useful plants of the country; which are sent to Canton for sale. On this account we were not sorry to be obliged to spend the remainder of the day at this place. Among the choice plants we noticed the large Peonia before mentioned, white, red, and variegated; the elegant Limodorum Tankervilliæ, and that singular plant the Epidendrum flos aeris so called from its vegetating without the assistance of earth or water; the Hybiscus mutabilis, the Abelmoschus, and other species of this genus; the double variegated Camellia Japonica; the great holly-hock; the scarlet amaranthus and another species of the same genus, and a very elegant Celosia or cock's comb; the Nerium Oleander, sometimes called the Ceylon rose, and the Yu-lan, a species of magnolia, the flowers of which appear before the leaves burst from the buds. Of the scented plants the plumeria and a double flowering jasmine were the most esteemed. We observed also in pots the Ocymum or sweet Basil, Cloranthus inconspicuous, called Chu-lan, whose leaves are sometimes mixed with those of tea to give them a peculiar flavour; the Olea fragrans, or sweet scented olive, said also to be used for the same purpose; a species of myrtle; the much esteemed Rosa Sinica; the Tuberose; the strong scented Gardenia florida, improperly called the Cape Jasmine; the China pink and several others, to enumerate which would exceed the limits of this work.