letter we bid farewell to China. When I see it again it will
doubtless be greatly changed. Already I have come too late to see
poppy fields or opium dens; too late to see the old-time cells in
which candidates for office were kept during their examination
periods; too late, I am told, to find the flesh of cats or dogs for
sale in the markets. If I had waited five years longer, it is likely
that I should not have found the men wearing their picturesque queues
and half-shaven heads; before five years, too, a parliament and a
cabinet will have a voice in the government in which until now the one
potent voice has been that of the Emperor, the "Son of Heaven"
divinely appointed to rule over the Middle Kingdom. All over the
country the people are athrill with a new life. Unless present signs
fail, the century will not be old before the Dragon Empire, instead of
being a country hardly consulted by the Powers about matters affecting
its own interests, will itself become one of the Powers and will have
to be consulted about affairs in other nations.

Be it said, to begin with, that I am just back from Canton, the most
populous city in China and supposedly one of the half dozen most
populous in the whole world. As no census has ever been taken, it is
impossible to say how many people it really does contain. The
estimates vary all the way from a million and a half to three
millions. Half a million people, it is said, live on boats in the
river. Some of them are born, marry, grow old, and die without ever
having known a home {143} on land. And these boats, it should be
remembered, are no larger than a small bedroom at home. I saw many of
them yesterday afternoon, and I also saw many of the women managing
them. The women boatmen--or boat-women--of Canton are famous.

Think of a city of two or three million people without a vehicle of
any kind--wagon, buggy, carriage, street-car, automobile, or even a
rickshaw! And yet this is what Canton appears to be. I didn't see even
a wheelbarrow. The streets are too narrow for any travel except that
of pedestrians, and the only men not walking are those borne on the
shoulders of men who are walking. My guide (who rejoices in the name
of Ah Cum John) and I went through in sedan chairs--a sort of chair
with light, narrow shafts before and behind. These shafts fit over the
heads and bare shoulders of three coolies, or Chinese laborers, and it
is these human burden-bearers who showed us the sight