curiously claim their kindred with the earth. On every boat, a little soil and a few flowers, are as essential as the little joss-house and the little joss. Canals flow from the river through Canton; every where, over the mud, upon the water side are wooden houses built on piles. But here we will not go ashore; the suburbs of Canton are full of thieves, and little boys who shout _fan-qui_ (foreign devil) after all barbarians, and we should not be welcome in the city; so we will not go where we shall not be welcome. After floating up and down the streets and lanes of water made between the boats upon the Canton river, pleased with the strange music, the gongs, and the incessant chattering of women, (Chinese women are pre-eminent as chatterers,) we sail away. We do not wait even till night to wonder at the scene by lantern light; but returning by the way we came, repass the rice fields, the water lilies, and the forts, the islands, and Macao, and Hong Kong, and have again before us the expanse of ocean. Canton lies within the tropic; sugar-cane grown in its vicinity yields brown sugar and candy; but our lump sugar is a luxury to which the Chinese have not yet attained. Canton lying within the tropic, we shall change our climate on the journey northward. An empire that engrosses nearly a tenth part of the globe, and includes the largest population gathered under any single government, will have many climates in its eighteen provinces. Now we are sailing swiftly northward by a barren rocky coast, with sometimes hills of sand, and sometimes cultivated patches, and, except for the pagodas on the highest elevations, we might fancy we were off the coast of Scotland.