[16] This word has various meanings; I do not know, however, why it is applied to these floating houses. The Chinese merchants speak of a “chop” of tea or silk, meaning an amount which bears a certain mark. They eat with chop-sticks; and a ship’s clearance to go to sea, after she has taken cargo, is called a “grand chop.” Then there is the expression, “chop-chop,” meaning, if addressed to a servant, to “be quick,” or, “do it immediately.” To say “chop-chop” to your chair-Coolie, means “step faster.” [17] If a sample--called by the Chinese a “muster”--of Western furniture is given to a Cantonese cabinet-maker, he will directly produce a well-made and exact copy of the original. [18] The unquestioned obedience which is rendered to Chinese parents by their children, and the respectful reverence that is manifested for the aged by all classes of the people, are the most remarkable characteristics of the nation. In fact, the Chinese unwittingly keep that commandment to which is annexed the promise, and it has been questioned by many, whether their great antiquity and long-continued existence as a prosperous nation, may not be owing to the honor they pay their parents. [19] The housekeeper has the store-rooms, pantries, safes for food, etc., under her own supervision. [20] That is, some god-worship. CHAPTER VIII. While living at Whampoa we went often to Canton, passing, altogether, a month there in visiting friends, and places of interest. Steamers carrying passengers and freight were despatched every alternate day from Hong Kong and Macao, to Canton,--running up and down the estuary and river; but although these boats always stopped at Whampoa, my first sail up the river to the “City of Genii”--as an old legend terms it--was made in a sanpan, which was rowed by three Chinese boatmen, and sculled by a woman. It was a clear and balmy morning in February,--the weather being more like one of our cool and perfect summer days at home, when one always feels the appositeness of Herbert’s lines:-- “Sweet day, so cool, so clear, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky.” The New-Year festival had closed the day previous, but the Chinese vessels and boats were still bedecked with their holiday trappings. The newly painted junks with their butterfly sails, fancy streamers, and red flags, made quite a gay appearance, and together with the passenger-boats, cargo-boats, and sanpans,--from which were also fluttering bright flags, streamers, and red papers,--produced a scene at once unique and brilliant. The land, on both sides of the river, which is low, is mostly used for the cultivation of rice; and husbandmen, with their rude ploughs drawn by buffalo oxen, were already preparing the soil to receive the seed. The plantain, with its long, heavy clusters of ripening fruit, was growing in great luxuriance upon the borders of the stream.