enormous accumulations. These hilly ranges, or “loess,”
which, from a distance, closely resemble the upper portion
of the extraordinary table-topped mountains,
Kukenam and Roraima of the Merume range in the . O
interior of British Guiana, have no horizontal subdivision,
hut are intersected vertically by precipitous
winding clefts forming terraces on either side, which
the inhabitants utilize for the construction of their
dwellings, invisible to the ordinary traveller above;
moreover, these narrow defiles furnish them with hollow
subways of a most intricate kind, and exceedingly
useful during disturbed times.
I must now continue my route to the “City Temple,”
one of the largest, and fitted up like the others with
squinting gilt figures. This place of Taouist worship
was principally frequented by women, who, on the pavement,
marked out in certain mystic lines, threw their
horoscope by means of two pieces of wood, cocoanut or
Joss-sticks, according to some magic ru le ; whilst the
approach to the altar was crowded by charm writers
and fortune-tellers.
There are besides a great many other temples and
Joss houses, mostly gloomy-looking places. In one of
them the lower orders were in the habit of presenting
a sacrifice to a serpent, which used to creep lazily upon
the altar stone to devour the frog or rat thrown to him.
In the East, adoration, from a sentiment of fear, is
almost universally reserved for the evil spirit, the god
of destruction, or his emblem.
Here my perambulations came to an end, and beyond
a short stoppage from time to time to let the train of
a mandarin pass in his commodious chair, carried on the
shoulders of four liveried bearers, and surrounded by a
cortege of several scores of officials and officers, I at last
reached Sha-Min completely tired out.
On the following day an excursion along the river
was proposed, say within a safe distance of Canton, to
see something of the country and obtain a little fresh
air, which seemed a rare article in the town. Low h ills
succeeded each other wherever the eye could reach;
and the proximity in which villages appeared is proof
of a thick population. Here women seemed to do all
the agricultural labour. Tea and rice plantations there
were on every side, and amongst the trees and plants
I noticed many kinds peculiar to China, as
The Tallow tree (Stillingia sebifera),
The Varnish tree (Dryandra cor data),
The Camphor tree (Laurus camphora),
The Chinese Pine (Pinus sinensis),
The Chinese Banyan (Ficus nitida);