Stone and wood are rarely employed in erecting the walls of houses: the first is frequently employed in making gate-ways and door-posts, and the second for columns, beams, and rafters. Many of the floors in houses and temples are formed of indurated mud; marble flags and tiles are likewise used for roofs; they are laid in rows on the rafters, alternately concave and convex, forming ridges and furrows, luted by a cement of clay. Windows are small and rarely supplied with glass; paper, mica, shell, or some other translucent substance, supplies its place; very little iron is employed in building. The materials above named, for buildings, are procured here at moderate prices and in great abundance. Wood, usually a species of the fir, is floated down the rivers, and brought to the city in large rafts. Bricks are made in the neighbourhood of Canton, brought hither in boats, and sold at various prices, from three to eight shillings a thousand. These bricks are of a leaden blue or of a pale brown colour; a few being red; the variation of teint is produced by the different modes of drying and burning them; the red bricks are those most thoroughly burned; the leaden blue have received only a partial action of the fire, the pale brown, the sun’s action alone. Excellent stone for building is found in the hilly country on the north of the province, and also in several of the islands, south of the city. Granite and sandstone are those principally found and in great variety. Such is the general style and usual material of the buildings in Canton. In passing through the city, the spectator is struck with the great contrast between them, though this diversity does by no means fully exhibit the relative condition and circumstances of the people: a few only are rich, and the external appearance of their houses does not exceed, in elegance, the dwellings of the middle class; many are very poor--and the aspect of their abodes affords abundant evidence of their abject state. [Sidenote: STATE OF THE POOR.] The poorest people are to be found in the extreme parts of the suburbs, along the banks of the canals, and in the northern part of the old city; their houses are mere mud-hovels; low, narrow, dark, unclean, and without any division of apartments. A whole family, consisting of six, eight, ten, and sometimes twice the number, is crowded into one of these dreary abodes; yet we meet with individuals, enjoying health and long life under these circumstances. To pass through the streets or lanes of such a neighbourhood, is sufficient to reconcile a person to any ordinary condition of life.