Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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Macao is a peninsula, eight miles in circuit, stretching out from a large island. The connecting piece of land is a narrow isthmus, which in native topography is called “the stalk of a water-lily.” In 1840 a low wall stretched across this isthmus, the foundation stones of which had been laid about three hundred years ago, with the acknowledged object of limiting the movements of foreigners. This was the notorious “barrier,” which, during the Chinese war of 1840–1, was used to annoy the English. As large numbers of the peasantry had to pass the “barrier gates” with provisions for the mixed population at Macao, it was a frequent manœuvre with the Chinese authorities to stop the market supplies by closing the gate, and setting over it a guard of half-starved and ravenous soldiery.

MACAO.

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:—