On the 16th of October I left Macao for the “Cum, sing, moon,” and the following morning sailed in the Lady Hayes, Captain Hector, for Whampoa, which afforded me an excellent opportunity of viewing the scenery of the river. We passed the island of Lintin, off which, (in the roadstead, on the north-west side,) a number of ships were lying at anchor. About ten P.M. we anchored off Chuen, pee, for the night. On the morning following, as soon as the tide was favourable, we were again under weigh, and about noon passed, with a light, but favourable breeze, the Bocca Tigris, and entered the river. This entrance to a very magnificent and extensive stream, is capable of being very strongly fortified. The Chinese have forts, mounting a great number of cannon, erected on each side of the passage: they excited some degree of interest in our minds, as being those silenced by the broadside of his Majesty’s ship Alceste, some years since; a triumph of British firmness over Chinese impudence. The country about Chuen, pee had a picturesque appearance; but although we hear so much related about the Chinese cultivating every spot of land, not leaving even the most barren spots unoccupied, in few countries have I seen more land left waste, much of which has an appearance of fertility: the valleys certainly were cultivated, and had an animated and pleasing feature in the landscape from the vivid green of the numerous plantations of what seemed to be sugar-cane scattered about. But with this exception, and the neat cottages nearly buried in the foliage of the trees surrounding them, there was no interesting view: the elevated land was, principally bare, barren, and uncultivated. On entering the river, the scenery was very pleasing; the banks were low, and, for the most part, under rice cultivation, which, still retaining its green tinge, imparted a luxuriant and animating beauty to the view. Small huts were scattered about, over which the graceful bamboo waved its towering stem; the high and wooded hills arose in the distance of the back ground of the landscape; and this, with boats passing about the intersecting canals of the paddy-fields, formed the principal feature of the country about the Canton river to Whampoa, where we arrived in the evening,[34] and left in a boat for Canton (a distance of twelve miles) on the following day.