The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-10-21
CANTON.
Strange Sights in Bewildering OIL,
City,

am sure that Canton is the queerest,
the most wonderful and bewildering o
old city under the sun. 1t certainly has
more strange sights to the square yard
than any other city / ever saw. and l
am willing to back it against all the
rest. Even now, when | try to recall
the strange scenes and sounds | encoun-
tered on that memorable visit, it makes
my eyes ache and nay brain whirl, just
as it did then.
Well, well, well! What wonderful
old city it is! How bewildering, and
how interesting at every step! This is
no more like the Chinese quarter OF
Hong Kong than an old bill is like a
new silver dollar. How very, very diff
ferent from what we had expected to
see! Compared with the substantial
newness and Europeanness of Hong
Kong, this is veritable fossil, relic of
the past, with nothing of the nineteenth
century about it save the European
quarter and the steamer on the river
The city is all on the ground, or, at the
very most, it will not average more than
a story and half in height. Where
the shops are thickest, each square is
an unbrOken succession of wide door
ways; for of every shop the whole end
next to the street takes out bodily. From
one street corner to the next there is
only succession of open-ended rooms
and partition walls, with dark, narrow
passages thrown in here and there.
There is no architecture visible, for the
houses are SO jammed together that it
Is impossible to single out any one in
particular without climbing on the roof
to see how much it covers
If this is not street IN Wonderland
it might as well be- 1t is only about
eight feet wide, and many are less The
caves of the houses on each side project
a quarter or third of the way across
the street, and the remaining third in
the middle is very often loosely covered
over with boards placed crosswise
When the sun is shining the streets are
light enough, but in rainy or cloudy
weather they are very dark and gloomy,
and the peculiar twilight effect only
adds another clement of strangeness to
the scene. Thank goodness. the streets
are well paved with smooth, grant flag
stones, one foot by three. and being
kept very clean there is no mud to plod
through, even when it rains, Pedes-
trianism is the order of the day. There
are no carriages, carts, drays, big
freight wagons, omnibuses, or street
cars to run over you if you fail to get
out of the way, for all the freight is car.
ried by coolies.
Now and then, however, your wool
he, ic 4 I;-t,,r l,- 4
loud shouting a little way down the
street, and you see the crowd parting
to right and left. Then you know there
is sedan chair coming and you take
shelter behind a sign-board, or in a
friendly doorway, or fatten yourself
against wall until the peripatetic nui-
sance has gone by. But the streets are
SO narrow that chairs are not very
often used. They move too slowly; il
takes too much shouting to clear the
way, and when two meet in narrow
thorOughfare one has to be side-tracked
before the other can go by. The use of
the chair, therefore, is confined to lazy
merchants and officers, weak women
and swell Europeans. For my part, l
would not do Canton in sedan chair
if | could have whole set for nothing.
But there is one drawback to pedes-
trianism. As you pass along you are
obliged TO be on the alert to keep from
coming into collision with half-naked
coolies, carrying all sorts of loads. All
loads are carried in the same way; every
school-boy knows it, so l will not stop
to describe it. No matter where YOU
90, you can be certain that every few
minutes one of these coolies will come
putting and shuffling along at dog
trot, shouting every few steps to those
in front of him to ''clear the track
his load springing up and down, and
his bamboo lathee creaking rhythmi-
cally at every step.-Ihe Cosmopolitan.