Approach to Canton-Fireworks. Νου. in a very short time from his pretended ware- 1804. house. Whether this ever actually occurred, or was fabricated by the Chinese, I cannot pretend to say. From hence to the European factories, the crowd of boats was so immense, that our progress was exceedingly slow; and night came on before we could reach the city: this, however, is perhaps the best time for a stranger to approach Canton; for then the concourse of boats and vessels of various descriptions, all highly illuminated; the chop houses on shore bedecked with great numbers of globular oil-paper lamps; the din of the Chinese language on every side; the clangour of their gongs; the shrill notes of their music; and the glare of their fire-works *; all combine * "Last of all, (says Lord Macartney,) came the fireworks, which in some particulars exceeded any thing of the kind I had ever seen. In grandeur, magnificence, and va❤ riety, they were, I own, inferior to the Chinese fire-works we had seen in Batavia; but infinitely superior in point of novelty, neatness, and ingenuity of contrivance. One piece. of machinery I greatly admired; a green chest of five feet square, was hoisted up by a pulley to the height of fifty or sixty feet from the ground; the bottom was so constructed as then suddenly to fall out, and make way for twenty or thirty strings of lanterns, enclosed in the box, to descend from it, unfolding themselves from one another by degrees, so as at last to form a collection of at least 500, each having a light of beautifully coloured flame burning within it. The devolution and developement of lanterns, (which appeared to me to be composed of gauze and paper,) were several times repeated, and every time exhibited a difference of colour and figure. On each side was a correspondence of smaller boxes, which opened in like manner as the others, and let down an immense net-work of fire, with divisions and compartments of various forms and dimensions, round and square, hexagons, octagons, and lozenges, which shone like the bright. 1804. Fireworks-European Factories. to form a scene so novel and striking, that the Nov. impression which it leaves on one's memory can hardly ever be erased. It took us nearly an hour to make our way through the throng on this part of the river, when the sight of European, or rather Anglo-oriental, houses announced our vicinity to the factories, which are situated on the north-eastern side of the Taa or Tigris. The European factories at Canton extend a considerable way along the banks of the river, at the distance of perhaps two hundred feet from the water's edge; they consist of a range of very elegant houses, each having the flag of the nation to which it belongs, hoisted from sunrise till sunset, on a flag-staff opposite to the gate of the factory. Except the French, this range exhibited in the day-time the colours of most of the European maritime powers; but the English factory, or rather series of warehouses, exceeds all the others both in elegance and extent: in this great and remote commercial city, the mart of European trade seems to be fixed at the British factory. Here it is that one beholds the bustle of China merchants, and people of all descriptions; the mountains (if I may be allowed the expression,) of the most valuable China goods, of every kind, est burnished copper, and flashed like prismatic lightning with every impulse of the wind. The diversity of colours, indeed, with which the Chinese have the secret of clothing fire, seems one of the chief merits of their pyrotechny. The whole concluded with a volcano, or general explosion and discharge of suns, stars, squibs, bouncers, crackers, rockets, and grenadoes, which involved the gardens for above an hour in a cloud of intolerable smoke."-BARROW. Confidence placed in the English. 1801. piled up on the beach, to be transported to our ships at Wampoa; while the petty and confined Nov. commerce of other nations, renders their representatives despicable in the eyes of the Chinese, who look upon the English as the most respectable and responsible nation with which they have any communication. As a proof of this, it is a well-known fact, that the English boxes of dollars, having the Company's stamp on them, will pass through China, as a bank note does through England; the Chinese never attempting to count them, but trusting implicitly to the number marked thereon: whereas in their dealings with other nations, they take special care to count over every dollar they receive from them. Before the British factory, and extending nearly down to the water's edge, there is a very elegant verendah, raised on handsome pillars, flagged with square marble slabs, and commanding an extensive view of the river, east and west, the Dutch and French Follies, the suburbs, the southern bank of the Tigris, and a considerable scope of the country in that direction. Adjoining this verendah is the long room, where the Company's table is kept for the Supercargoes; and a very princely one it is: a dinner being every day spread here, at which Kings might sit down, and consider themselves as "faring sumptuously." Indeed it must be allowed, that the EastIndia Directors are extremely liberal in the establishments of their servants; and even this circumstance procures them a degree of respect in the eyes of the Chinese, which the agents of other nations may long look for in vain. The Captains of the Company's ships have always free access 1804. Nov. Supercargoes. to this table, I believe; but no others, unless by invitation: the officers of men of war are always invited here, and treated in the most handsome manner by the Supercargoes. The weather was now so cold, that we were obliged to have fires in our rooms: for though Canton lies nearly in the same parallel of latitude as Calcutta, yet there is a difference of perhaps 15 or 20 degrees of the thermometer between the two places, caused by the mountains of China and Tartary, from whence the N. E. monsoon blows extremely cool. Astranger arriving in any foreign country, must of course be very much amused with the novel scenes that surround him; though many of them may not, perhaps, be essentially different from those in his own country: but here he cannot fail to have ample scope for his curiosity, where the inhabitants, language, manners, customs, even the houses, manufactures; where, in short, the tout ensemble is so specifically different from what he had been accustomed to see, that he could almost fancy himself transported into a new world. Canton. CHAP. VIII. Canton-Its Streets, Houses, &c.-Ivory and Porcelain CANTON, if we may judge by the Chinese maps, N 1804. Dec. |