NANKIN-PORCELAIN TOWER.

See Plate, No. 76.

Nankin, once the metropolis of China, is situated near the Kian-Ku, 500 miles SSE. of Pekin. The population was formerly estimated at two or three millions, but it is now much reduced, and the city has lost much of its splendour. It covers a greater extent of ground than any other city of China, but about one third of its area is now unoccupied. It is, however, the first city in China with regard to manufactures, the principal of which are crapes and silks, and thin stuffs, which, from this place, are called nankeens. It is also the most learned city in the empire; it furnishes the greatest number of doctors, and has the best furnished booksellers' shops. Its principal ornaments are its lofty and splendid gateways, and its porcelain tower.

The most remarkable object in Nankin is the celebrated Porcelain Tower, which may be regarded as a fine specimen of oriental pagodas. It is about 200 feet in height, and 40 in diameter, composed of nine stories, and mounted by 884 steps. It appeared to Mr. Ellis to be formed of white tile, having the appearance of porcelain. At the top is a large ball, which the Chinese assert to be of solid gold, though some suspect it to be only gilded. This structure bears the date of 1411, and is said to have cost £800,000 sterling.

CANTON.

Canton, situated near the mouth of a river, in the southern part of the country, is the great commercial port of the empire to which foreign vessels are admitted, being the only emporium of European commerce in China. It is a large and populous city, having a population, according to some, of upwards of 1,000,000. The city is composed of three parts, separated by lofty walls; the houses present nothing remarkable, but great neatness; they are chiefly built of brick, consisting of only one story, and have no windows towards the street. The streets are continually crowded, especially with porters, there being no other means of transporting goods, than men's shoulders. People of condition are here carried in chairs.

streets.

About a league from Canton is the Boat Town, which consists of about 40,000 barks of all sizes, which cover the river night and day, and form a kind of floating city. They all touch one another, and are ranged so as to form The inhabitants are said to amount to nearly 300,000, composed chiefly of the poorer classes, and have no other dwelling, and are not allowed to settle on shore. As many as 5,000 vessels are often seen lying before the city. The exports consist of tea, to the annual amount of 30 or 40 millions of pounds; also, porcelain, nankeens, silks, and many other articles. The management of foreign trade is vested in a council, called Hong merchants, who are generally 13 in number, and men of great wealth. No foreign merchant is allowed to trade, till one of these persons becomes security for his good behaviour; hence their common appellation of security merchants.

THE CHINESE WALL.

The great wall which bounds China on the north, separating it from Tartary, is the most enormous fabric in the world. It is about 1,500 miles in length, 30 feet high on the plain, and from 15 to 20, when carried over rocks and elevated grounds. The top is paved with flat stones, and is of such breadth in many places, that six horsemen can ride abreast upon it. In the plains it has large projecting towers at the distance of a bow-shot from each other. The foundation consists of large square stones laid in mortar; but the rest of it much resembles the wall of Pekin, and is composed of an earthen mound, cased on each side with brick or stone. Towards the western extremity, however, it is merely a mound of earth, very defective in various places.

The date of this great fortification is not well ascertained, but it is said to have been completed about 214 years before the Christian era. It begins at its eastern extremity with a strong bulwark, or large pile of stone, raised in the Yellow sea, and proceeds westward till it terminates near the city of Kin, on the Hoang-Ho, in the impassable mountains and sandy deserts, which begin from that point to cover the western frontiers. It is carried across rivers, valleys, marshes, and over the top of the highest moun

tains without a single interruption in its course, except by a ridge of inaccessible mountains, near the city of Suen, to which it is closely united on each side, and by the river Hoang-Ho, which passes through it in its progress to the sea; while rivers of smaller size find a passage by means of arches like those of a bridge, without breaking the line of building.

It has been computed that this enormous fabric, including the earthen part of the mound, would furnish materials sufficient to surround the earth, in two of its great circles, with two walls, each of them six feet high and two thick. It has also been further calculated, that all the houses in Great-Britain, supposing them to amount to the number of 1,800,000, and to average 2,000 cubic feet of masonry, would not be equivalent to the solid contents of this immense building.

THE IMPERIAL CANAL.

The Imperial Canal of China is the greatest work of the kind in the world. It extends from north to south, 500 or 600 miles in length, cutting the great rivers nearly at right angles. Like the other canals of China, it is not constructed on the same scientific principles as those of Europe, nor composed, like them, of standing water, fed by reservoirs, elevated and lowered by locks. It is formed merely by turning aside the course of a river, and conducting its waters, by an artificial channel, till they join those of another river, from the other side of which the line is continued. The want of locks obliges the Chinese to conduct the canal, by a winding line round the different elevations which are encountered in its course.

In many places the channel is cut to the depth of 60 or 70 feet below the surface; in other places, embankments are constructed along swamps and lakes, often 20 feet above the level of the surrounding country; so that a body of water, 200 feet wide, is seen rolling along, at the rate of three miles an hour, on a level with the tops of the walls of the cities on its banks.