Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1884-02-20

Poa-The 'River Cbfnese"-On A SAM
| Pan-Interesting Harbor seenes-Ha-
tired of Foreigners.
| CANTON, China, Jan. 2.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
On bright beautiful morning in tine ex-
| treme last of December, boarded the steam
| sr ''Hanbow," rendered famous by her share
in the Canton riot proceedings, and started
for this interesting ssCity of Rains" as it is
l sometimes called. The steamer started at
| o'clock Prior to that hour there has been
| a scene of activity on the wharf and on board
that have rarely il ever seen paralleled
The Chinese were swarming everywhere,
| laterally like ants. Twelve or fifteen hundred
| were slowed away on the lower deck, paying
| forty cents each for the ride of eighty i've
or ninety miles, something like seventy-five
ayaied themselves of the second class ac-
commodations for 81, and half dozen
Europeans occupied the first class quarters,
paying So for the privilege. As looked at
| the people crowding and jostling each other,
I could not help thinking how dependent
they were upon European and American
| institutions. Were they to succeed in driv-
ing out the foreigners, as all would like to do.
I wonder if they would go back contentedly
to the old way of travelling three days by
junk in order to make the distance from
Hong Kong to Canton.
1t seemed good to get aboard fast Ameri-
can-built steamer once more; for you mus t
know that these Canton river steamers are
built with side-wheels and look just precisely
as if they were taken from the Great Lakes
at home or the Hudson river, to ply here in
these heathen waters. The Hankow, as
noticed by her license, is permitted to carry
2 356 passengers, which will give some idea
of the size of the boats which are engaged in
the navigation of this Canton river. As for
speed and accommodations, they quite
up to the mark. The trip is made in from
seven to eight hours, according to the STATE
of the tides. Occasionally where a captain
gets in great hurry, he will get through in
six hours or even less. The accommodations
are excellent throughout. Among the things
which attracted my attention as decidedly
novel were the presence of guns and revolv
ers stacked in the saloon for use in case of
an emergency, and special apartment set
aside as the ''Parsees' Cabin" The officers
were English and American, and the crew, of
course, Chinese. The passenger traffic is, as
[ have limited, immense. A steamer leaves
both cities every night and every morning
Sundays excepted. When the great wheels
began to revoive and We were fairly away
from the wharf, there were several belated
Chinamen to be seen frantically gesticulating
in the hope of inducing the steamer to
turn for them. The journey lay for thirty
or forty miles up broad bay dotted with
innunerable islands of mountainous charac
ter. Then fresh water was encountered and
the steamer proceeded up the Canton river
to the mouth ofthe Chu Kiang or Pearl river,
which in turn was followed for something
like fifteen miles. The general topographi-
ooIa n1n5J q Of
that of Shanghai, the Pearl river correspond
ing to the Wang po or Woosang, the Canton
river to the Yang te, and the preliminary pas
sage being broad bay in each case.
The shaliowness of the Canton river hinders
large ocean craft from ascending it except
under the most favorable conditions of The
tides. The light draft of these paddle wheel
boats enables them, however, to perform the
trip at any time of the day night Soon
after entering the river we passed the Bogue
forts These were battered down by 4.hs
British in 1856, aud for a long time lay in
ruins; but they were rebuilt and occupied at
the time of the last trouble with Japan
There are two we'll fortified islands little
west of the middle of the river, and another
fort on the east bank Looking at these
forts l should say that they command the en-
| tire river, and might be made a serious i'm
pediment to any foreign feet that had got
started for Canton. ALL the forts were pro
according to the Chinese way of doing. 1
also noticsd a curious marshalling of the men
on the earthworks in the case of the eastern
fort. line of men extended the whole
ength of the rampant, each man facing our
boat, and the distance not being greater than
five feet between the men. The soldiers had
| red jackets on, but could not distinguish
anything else about their uniform Doubt
less the obnoxious plgtails at which the
French ars SO anxious to get tweak Were
dons up ia their caps Beside this land fort
stood regiment of soldiers drawn up in solid
phalanx, while another company occupied
post about five hundred feet further up the
hill and still third was stationed at the
treme summit, perhaps one thousand feet
| above the surface of the water. From this
commanding eminence it would be quite easy
to drop shell on any passing ship.
just beyond the Bogue forts looked up
on Tiger island, a ssupendous globular rocs
on the centre OF granite natural pedestal
tere the Macao steamer Kiang- Ping came
alongside OF US and race seemed on the pro
gramme. l had heard much of the Canton
river steamboat races and rather relished the
idea of personally experiencing one; but after
short squirt the contest was abandoned II
was very uneven one. for the Khan, Pings
wheels were much smaller than ours, and she
gracefully dropped back into the HankoW's
wake.
One OF the curious features of the voyage
was the laborious gabble of the Chinese story
teller aboerd Every boat has such man
who lives on her, travelling back and forth
wherever she goes. Tie seats himself in
chair in the centre of the second class caLin.
where the wealthy Chinese ride, and keeps
up an incsssant narration during the whole
day, expecting to profit by the cumshaws
which his travelling fellow countrymen will
bestow upon him. The man who performed
| the office on board our steamer painfully
slow and distinct in his enunciation. He Car
ried fan In his right hand, with which he
| would gesture occasionally in a languid way.
| fhe audience did not seem to pay much heed
to him, some being fast asleep, some engaged
i'll talking, others reading and still others
| looking out of the windows But the man
| kept right at it all day, never faltering for a
moment or becoming careless about his artic-
| ulation, even when every body went out on
| deck to watch passing steamsr. He was
| the most faithful nuisance I ever saw.
Occasionally tall pagoda might be seen
from the top of neighboring bill. Like the
| japanese pagodas these were all constructed
of three, five, seven or nine stories; but
| unlike the Japanese pagodas they were built
| of brick or stone and were uniformly dllap1-
dated Ia appearance Frequently trees and
| bushes were to be seen growing out OF the
| rocks between galleries, or even at the ex-
| trene top, the result of seeds, doubtless,
which had been lodged there by the wind
Turning up the Pearl river We were soon op-
posite Whampoa, town which has whatever
of notoriety it possesses as the result of its
! past. It is just ten miles south Of Canton,
| and was for many years the depot for all
foreign merchant vessels, since no foreign
craft was allowed to ascend to Canton. Now
| it is the nearest point to Canton to which any
boat unprovided with steam can approach,
on account of the difficulties of navigating
crowded river. There are no foreigners in
the town, however, with the exception of a
British viceconsul, and its glory may be said
to have departed. Here the Chinese have
Just made a new fort of a very rude character
overlooking the river. Here, also, was quite
respectable little Chinese gunboat, much
like three which we had noticed anchored of
the Bogue forts.
Looking off with feld-glass to the north,
We could see an encampment where thousand
Chinese soldiers we're said to be quartersd.
Everything had new look, but as the camp
was fully two miles distant, we could not dis
tinguish any details. The vegetation on
either side of the river was quite tropical.
Long reefs covered with luxuriant plantains
we're frequently seen. At Whampoa the
steamer ran between two RATS and paused to
disRorge herself of three or four hundred
Chinese Tho moment the wheels started