Neither intelligence or industry could ever be confined in such miserable cells. In habitations, a little more spacious and cleanly than these, perhaps one third part of the people in Canton have their abodes: these stand close on the street, and have usually but a single entrance, which is closed by a bamboo screen, suspended from the top of the door; within these houses, there are no superfluous apartments: a single room is allotted to each branch of the family, while a third, which completes the number within the whole enclosure, is used by all the household as a common eating-room. [Sidenote: HOUSES.] Chinese houses usually open towards the south; but in these, as also in the poorer kind, this favourite position is disregarded. Dwellings of this description, are rented at four or five dollars a month. Another class of houses, inhabited by a more wealthy but less numerous part of the community, are the residences of those in easy circumstances, who enjoy plenty without any of the accompaniments of luxury; these houses together with the plot of ground on which they stand are surrounded by a wall, twelve or fourteen feet high, that rises and fronts the street, so as completely to conceal all the buildings from the traveller, as he passes by. The prospect, in passing along the narrow streets which are lined with these houses, is very cheerless. If allowed to enter some of these dwellings more pleasing scenes will be presented. A stranger enters the outer enclosure through a large folding door into an open court, thence he is conducted by a servant to the visiters’ hall; which is usually a small apartment, furnished with chairs, sofas, tea-stands, &c.; here the host presents himself to introduce his guest to the younger members of the family. These halls are open on one side, the others being ornamented with carved work, or hung with various scrolls presenting in large and elegant characters, the moral maxims of their sages: or perhaps, exhibiting rude landscapes, or paintings of birds and flowers. The remaining portion of the enclosure is occupied with the domestic apartments; a garden and, perhaps, a small school-room.