The private gardens of Howqua and Pun-Tingqua--located a mile or two up the river from Canton--are much visited by foreigners. Both are enclosed by high walls; and although the garden of Howqua is not as well kept as formerly, it has spacious walks, pretty sheets of water, fine trees and plants, and altogether must have been a charming place when the avenues, ornamented buildings, and little bridges were in good order. We found the garden of Pun-Tingqua, on the contrary, not only well kept, but in a state of further improvement. One of the first things which strikes the eye on entering this garden is the handsomely covered walk bordering the walls. The grounds, however, are everywhere intersected with pleasant walks,--one of which, separating two artificial ponds, is bordered with fir-trees of a beautifully delicate foliage. A large house, standing within this garden, is the summer retreat of Pun-Tingqua’s family, and the private theatre of that gentleman is also in the same building. These extensive grounds included every variety of ornament usually found in Chinese gardens. There were pretty kiosks, grottoes, and fancy bridges, besides a handsome pagoda of three stories, from the upper windows of which the _coup d’œil_ of the whole was charmingly picturesque. The _Fa-ti_, or Flower-gardens,--from which foreigners at Canton are supplied with the pots of rare plants that always adorn their verandas,--are also situated on the river above the city. In these gardens we observed some very lofty palms, and there was also a superabundance of other trees and shrubs, which seemed to be growing in all the wild exuberance of nature. Here, and also at the garden of Pun-Tingqua, a lovely orchid, called “the nun,” was in blossom. In addition to the dwarfed trees and shrubs found in every Chinese garden, both at the Fa-ti and at the garden of Howqua, we noticed a small shrub, of a close, full, and delicate foliage, trimmed so as to form flower-baskets of elegant patterns. Animals, also, were delineated in the same manner, among which we observed many accurate representations of dogs and miniature giraffes.