Here is a grim fortress on the banks of the Bosporus.
Now how are you going to make Hobart Pasha out of all this?
THE STREETS OF CANTON.
They are very narrow and dirty, in the first place, with an average width of from three to five feet. They are paved with long, narrow slabs of stone. Their names are often both devotional and poetical. We saw Peace Street, and the street of Benevolence and Love. Another, by some violent wrench of the imagination, was called the street of Refreshing Breezes. Some contented mind had given a name to the street of Early Bestowed Blessings. The paternal sentiment, so sacred to the Chinaman, found expression in the street of One Hundred Grandsons and street of One Thousand Grandsons. There was the street of a Thousand Beatitudes, which, let us pray, were enjoyed by its founder. There were streets consecrated to Everlasting Love, to a Thousandfold Peace, to Ninefold Brightness, to Accumulated Blessings; while a practical soul, who knew the value of advertising, named his avenue the Market of Golden Profits.
Other streets are named after trades and avocations. There is Betelnut Street, where you can buy the betel-nut, of which we saw so much in Siam, and the Cocoanut, and Drink Tea. There is where the Chinese hats are sold, and where you can buy the finery of a mandarin for a few shillings. 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 shops have signs in Chinese characters, gold letters on a red and black ground, which are hung in front, a foot or two from the wall, and droop before you as you pass under them.
One of the annoyances of the streets is the passage through them of mandarins in their palanquins, surrounded by guards, who strike the foot-passengers with their whips if they do not get out of the way quickly enough.