File:The critic in the Occident (1913) (14589756189).jpg

Identifier: criticinocciden00fitc (find matches)
Title: The critic in the Occident
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Fitch, George Hamlin, 1952-
Subjects:
Publisher: San Francisco : P. Elder & Co.
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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bout a half-mile wide. The foreign concession orShameen is free from these boats. It is really a sandspit, surrounded by water, which was made over tothe foreigners after the opium war. North of the Shameen is the new western sub-urb of Canton, which has recently been completedon European lines. It has a handsome bund, finelypaved, with substantial buildings facing the river.Close up against this bund, and extending down theriver bank for at least two miles are ranged row onrow of houseboats. Every few minutes a boat dartsout from the mass and is pulled to one of the shipsin the stream. Across the river and massed against the shore ofHonam, the suburb opposite Canton, is another tan-gle of sampans, with thousands of active river folk,all shouting and screaming. These yellow thousandstoiling from break of day to late at night do notseem human; yet each boat has its family life. Theyounger children are tied so that they cannot falloverboard, and the older ones wear ingenious floats (74)
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►e m o o_.- Q L <!*- 2. £T £■ S, 21- &. £ ^> o o ° o 5 ti tfl Canton in Days of Wild Panic which will buoy them up should they tumble intothe water. Boys and girls four or five years oldassist in the working of the boat, while girls of twelveor fourteen are experts in handling the oar and inusing the long bamboo boat hook that serves tocarry the small craft out of the tangle of river activity. A type of river steamer which will amaze the Am-erican is an old stern-wheeler run by man power. Itis provided with a treadmill just forward of the bigstern wheel. Two or three tiers of naked, perspiringcoolies are working this treadmill, all moving withthe accuracy and precision of machinery. The irrev-erent foreigner calls these the hotfoot boats, andin the land where a coolie may be hired all day forforty cents Mexican or twenty cents in our coin thishuman power is far cheaper than soft coal at fivedollars a ton. These boats carry freight and pas-sengers and they m

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