The Sun.
London, England, 1858-03-30 00:00:00

Leaving the execution-ground, and re-entering
the city, we reach, at a distance of about 200 yards,
a square space, wherein are the stumps of two man-
darin 'poles cut short by cannon-shot, and two
stone lions, with very peculiarly shaped heads and
ridiculous sharp noses. One side of the square is
occupied by the paiutel gates and outer buildings
of a yamun. This is all that remains standing of
the palace of the Governor-General. Inside those
gates you find nothing but two acres of brick rubbish.
Of the courts and pavillions I looked down upon
from the maintop of the Nimrod not a vestige re-
mains. The cannon of the ships knocked the place
down, and even while the firing still continued the
populace of this low neighbourhood rushed in and
carried away every scrap not only of furniture or
ornament, but of wood or stone. Th3y bore off thei
beams, the window frames, the wooden columns, ,
amid storms of round shot and shrapnell shell ;
and left nothing but the mounds of brick and
mortar and the fragments of wall which we see.
There is nothing like a Chinese mob for utter
destruction.

Repa,sing the southern wall, and pursuing our
course westward, we penetrate through devious
lanes (not more dirty, perhaps, than some of our
own waterside purlieus) to the ruins of those
bongs which were knocked down by the English
when they were compelled to retreat from Canton.
Elowqua.'s house is among the fallen, and so are the
bongs of many other "quas," who, while making
enormous fortunes from our trade, exulted in being
conspicuous as barbarian-haters, earning their pea-
cocks' tails by sitting on the Committee of War
and paying premiums for murdering and kidnap-
ping our people. When the real danger came all
this boasting canaille retired into the western
suburb, whither they were well informed by their
English and American friends that no fire would
be directed.

Passing these ruins, and crossing a little creek
upon a temporary bridge made of scaling ladders
and planks, we come on the site of the dear old
factories. It is now an open space, several acres in
extent, and covered over by little hillocks of pros-
ti ate bricks and trampled mortars. Not six inches
of wall is left standing, not an inch of wood lies
undiscovered. Only as if to show that while bar-
barian foundations are transitory Chinese institu-
tions are eternal, the solid pavement of Hog-lane
continues. The church which once stopped the path
has disappeared, but lines of Coolies are carrying
their burdens along Hog-lane and crowds of san-
pan s ply at the landing-place at which it terminates.
In small stalls near at hand you may buy English
books and odd articles of European use. A sailor
recently bought a Sevres vase, fully believing it to
be a Chinese antique ; all this is, of course, loot
from the factories. Its exhibition, under present
c-rcumstances, is only an ordinary instance of
Chinese impudence.
If we now turn northwards we shall get into
some of the best streets of the western suburb,
where every shop is like a little joss-house,
and where silks, and embroideries, wad jade
stone ornaments, and heavy, ugly, ill-made Chinese
furniture, and perfumeries, and other luxuries, are
set forth in the highest flight of Chinese taste. You
may go for a mile northward in a straight line. If
you deviate to the left, you will. probably want
your pocket compass to get back again, for you will
quickly be involved in the Belgravia of Can ton—
nai row, quiet streets, with windowless brick walls
and small doorways that give no notice that the
best private houses in Canton lie behind. We may
now visit the Temple of the 500 Gods without dan-
ger of being stoned, as Sir J. Bowring once was
when he ventured there; and you may even see
the Temple of Longevity, with its kitchen gardens
and ornamental grounds. Having rambled our full
in the western suburb, and lunched on tea and
cakes, perhaps at Howqua's (if you have a mer-
chant likely to buy tea in your party), or if not,
then at one of the many tea=houses, you may re-
turn into the city by the south-western gate, and
proceed eastwards to the temple set apart for
the adoration of the Emperor—a series of courts
and tabernacles—which, although just under
the wall, is not much injured by our fire.
Thence tend away to the north-west, and' you will
cross the Tartar city and look up at the Mahomedan
mad ic4x-2ua a sreat:A rah 97E6 a city. Con-
tinue in the same line and you will at last reach the
nine-storied pagoda where the priests will chin-chin
you and be very civil. Pass thence backwards in
front of the Tartar yamun to the yamun of the Go-
vernor. You will then have done 12 Louie' hard
walking, aad will lie quite ready to join any one of
the hospitable messes whereat British and French
officers discuss savoury stews in different nooks of
that celestial edifice. Another day may well be de-
voted to the river. You will go up the crowded
Fatee Creek and land at the gardens—some two or
three acres of nursery-ground—where you will see
thousands of rare trees in pots, dwarfed and dis-
torted into gross imitations of dogs and deer and
dragons and vases and birdcages. There are also
mandarin orange trees, beautiful camellias, and
other flowers whose names I know not, but all in
pots and all for sale. You will visit also Puntin
qua's house and gardens-60 acres of fishponds,
pavilions, bridges, and aviaries, with painted barges
pretty flowers, cool stone seats; and every prepara-
tion for summer indolence—the whole dominated
by a white pagoda, whence you have a complete
view of the whole.

Having seen all this, you will not have seen one-
tenth part of Canton, but you will have seen all I
dare to indicate of a general character, for I must
not turn the columns of the Times into a Chinese
itinerary, and my only excuse for saying what I
have said is that Canton is a virgin city, and some
description of it is strictly speaking news.
Two days wore occupied in visiting the prisons.
A proclamation had been extorted from Peh-kwei,
giving general amnesty to all who were amenable
to punishment for having held commerce with the
foreigners. It was the duty of the three allied
Commissioners to ascertain that this amnesty was
fully carried out. In the first prison we found a
Portuguese boy, a Portuguese man, and the Coolie
wbo had acted as verger at the church attached to
the factories. At the end of our second day's
labour we returned to the yamun with 59 prisoners
and two Mandarins, head gaolers, in our custody.
I approach with reluctance the task of telling
what we saw in these places, and shall dimiss the
topic as briefly as I can. It is not, however, suffi-
cient to say that all the inmates were squalid and
half-starved, swarming with vermin and covered
with skin diseases. This conditionis common to all
the Canton gaols, and to all their inmates. But
there are horrors which one mind oannot convey to
another, and such we saw again and again during
those two days.

A Chinese gaol is a group of smallyards enclosed
by no general outer wall (except in one instance).
Around this yard are dens like thes dens in which
we confine wild beasts. The bars are not of iron, but
of double rows of very thick bamboo, so close toge-
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cond prison, and Lord Elgin, who is seldom absent
when any work is doing, was one of the spectators.
As it was broad daylight the dens were supposed
to be empty. Some one thought he heard a low I
morn in one of them, and advanced to the bars to
listen. He recoiled as if a blast from a furnace had
rushed out upon him. Never were human senses
assailed by a more horrible stream of pestilence. The
gaolers were ordered to open that place, and refusing
—as a Chinaman al ways at firstrefuses, were given
over to the rough handlingiof the soldiers, who
were told to make them. No sooner were hands laid
upon the gaolers than the stifled moan became a
wail, and the wail became a concourse of low weakly
muttered groans. So soon as the double doors
could be opened several of us went into theplace.
The thick stench could only be endured for a mo-
ment, but the spectacle was not one to look
long at. A corpse lay at the bottom of the den,
the breasts, the only fleshy parts, gnawed and
s
eaten away by rats. Around it and upon it
Man-
a festering mass of humanity still alive.
what all the
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saw that sight will ever forgot it• y
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