CANTON
guide impressively. "Most glorious funeral!" And gongs they were, as the guide had said. Gongs of all sizes and descriptions, most of them made of brass and others, apparently, of tin. They were carried by perspiring Chinese, who stopped their clanging now and then to emit a most ferocious chorus of hair-raising yells, "Clang! Clang! Rattle-rattle! Bang!" The gong men, it appeared, were receiving a generous wage on this occasion and were so grateful as to make a brave effort to earn their money.
Finally, the gong men passed in the wake of the funeral procession, followed by one or two more bands, and as the ordinary activities of daily routine were renewed and the roar of traffic was once more heard on the streets, the guide volunteered the information that the corpse was being taken to the "City of Death," where, like the corpses on the river, it would be kept until the proper time for burial, probably some months ahead. The "City of Death"—a most interesting place to those morbidly inclined will be touched upon in a later chapter.
| THE PASSING WALLS |
ANTON, for several centuries, was surrounded by a wide, brick wall, nearly six miles in circumference, surmounted by towers, and pierced at intervals by gateways, through which the inland traffic of the ages ebbed and flowed—never ceasing through the birth and death of generation after generation of oblique-eyed celestials.
The wall was erected on a granite and sandstone foundation; its width was about 30 feet and its height from 20 to 40 feet. The Cantonese very probably breathed a sigh of relief after the completion of the wall, for then, they thought, their city would be adequately protected against the depredations of the Manchu armies enviously looking down from the north at this prosperous city in the south of China.
But the wall, despite its appearance of solidity and strength, did not keep the Manchus from capturing Canton in 1652—somewhat over a century after its com-
Thirty-Two
