Leaving Macao for Canton, the ship passes the celebrated “Bogue Forts,” threads her course through a network of islets and mud-banks, and at last drops anchor twelve miles from the city off the island of Whampoa, where the numerous and grotesque junks, “egg boats,” “sampans,” &c., indicate a near approach to an important place. The name Canton is a European corruption of Kwang-tung, the “Broad East.” Among the Chinese it is sometimes described poetically as “the city of the genii,” “the city of grain,” and the “city of rams.” The origin of these terms is thus shown in a native legend. After the foundation of the city, which dates back 2,000 years, five genii, clothed in garments of five different colours, and riding on five rams of different colours, met on the site of Canton. Each of the rams bore in its mouth a stalk of grain having five ears, and presented them to the tenants of the soil, to whom they spake in these words:— “May famine and death never visit you!” Upon this the rams were immediately petrified into stone images. There is a “Temple of the Five Rams” close to one of the gates of Canton. The river scene at Canton is most interesting. It is a floating town of huts built on rafts and on piles, with boats of every conceivable size, shape and use, lashed together. “It is,” says Dr. Milne, “an _aquarium_ of human occupants.” Canton has probably a population of over a million. The entire circuit of city and suburbs cannot be far from ten miles. Canton was bombarded in 1857-8 by an allied English and French force. Ten days were given to the stubborn Chinese minister, Yeh, to accede to the terms dictated by the Allies, and every means was taken to inform the native population of the real _casus belli_, and to advise them to remove from the scene of danger. Consul Parkes and Captain Hall were engaged among other colporteurs in the rather dangerous labour of distributing tracts and bills. In one of their rapid descents, Captain Hall caught a mandarin in his chair, not far from the city gate, and pasted him up in it with bills, then starting off the bearers to carry this new advertising van into the city! The Chinese crowd, always alive to a practical joke, roared with laughter. When the truce expired, more than 400 guns and mortars opened fire upon the city, great pains being taken only to injure the city walls, official Chinese residences, and hill forts. Then a force of 3,000 men was landed, and the city was between two fires. The hill-forts were soon taken, and an expedition planned and executed, chiefly to capture the native officials of high rank. Mr. Consul Parkes, with a party, burst into a _yamun_, an official residence, and in a few seconds Commissioner Yeh was in the hands of the English. An ambitious _aide-de-camp_ of Yeh’s staff protested strongly that the captive was the wrong man, loudly stammering out, “_Me_ Yeh! _Me_ Yeh!” But this attempted deceit was of no avail; the prize was safely bagged, and shortly