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CHAPTER XIII.

DANE'S ISLAND AND OTHER PLACES.

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Nine Islands. · Chuenpee. — Anunghoy. — Ty-cock-tow. North and South Wantang.-Ty-hoo-tow.-Dane's Island. -French Island.-The Ladrones.-Chinese Labourer.— Raising Water.- Chinese Buffalo. Boatmen.- Chinese Women. - - Predictions respecting China and Bhurtpore. — British Ladies at Whampoa.-Duck Boats.

WERE I to say even but a little on each of the islands in the Canton river, I might make up a book with my descriptions; but a book on the Canton-river islands would answer neither your purpose nor mine.

Above Macao roads, on the west side of the passage, are the Nine Islands, presenting some peculiarities. Chuenpee, Anunghoy, Ty-cocktow, North and South Wantang, Ty-hoo-tow, or Tiger Island, which is very mountainous, Dane's Island, and French Island have also many points of attraction, and the same remark may be made of the islands which present themselves on entering the port of Canton, called by the Europeans the Ladrone Islands, and by the natives Low-manshan (the old ten thousand hills). Europeans call

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THE LADRONE ISLANDS.

them the Ladrones, because at different periods of Chinese history they have been infested with pirates. Ladrone is a rogue, or thief. I wish, however, to dwell for a short time on some of the points of Dane's Island.

Chinamen will, perhaps, behave themselves better in future to foreigners than they have hitherto done. If a stranger manifested a little curiosity, some time back, venturing among the long-tails, he was tolerably sure to get hustled, if not pelted with mud and stones, though he might certainly venture to walk abroad on a part of Whampoa, or on Dane's Island, without molestation, and witness much of Chinese manners and customs. The latter place is beautifully diversified with hills and valleys, many of the hills having an interest attached to them by the firtrees and great number of tombs erected on their sides. These tombs press on the mind of the foreign spectator the reflection

Whatever land our feet may tread,

Our life is but a spider's thread.

In Dane's Island, which is about a mile and a half long and a mile broad, there are flats or terraces, one above another, to which you ascend by rude steps not very easy to climb, and here you see cultivation carried on to a great extent. I never could see a broad-faced, thin-chinned labourer, stripped to his waist, with his umbrella

CHINESE MODE OF RAISING WATER.

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like hat on his head, at plough with his buffalo, guiding the animal with a long bamboo; or at work with his mattock, rake, or fork, without wandering, in my mind, to the country scenes of my native land. The "Chin-chin" of the Chinese labourer reminded me of the "Good-morning" of the English countryman, though the rice and cotton grounds, the mean houses of half-burnt blue brick, and the pagodas were but a poor substitute for the corn-fields, the cottages, and village spires of old England.

The mode of raising water by two men holding between them a bucket suspended by strings or cords, has been in use from ancient times. The bucket is filled by being lowered into the water, and raised by pulling the cords; it is then with a sudden jerk emptied into the head of the canal formed to receive it, or into the field it is intended to irrigate. "He shall pour water out of his buckets," says Holy Scripture in the Book of Numbers, "and his seed will be in many waters." Another machine much in use, is similar to our chain pump. A series of moveable flat boards are placed across the inclined trough in which they move, thus performing the part of buckets in raising the water. The flat boards in the trough are kept in motion either by a buffalo yoked to a horizontal wheel, or by men, who, while they hold a fixed rail or beam with their hands, give a rotatory motion with their feet to the wheel, at the

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CHINESE MODE OF RAISING WATER

upper part of the trough, round which the flat boards revolve. A smaller machine, of the same kind, worked by the hand, is in general use. In the Book of Deuteronomy it is said of the land of Egypt, "Where thou sowedst thy seed, and waterdst it with thy foot as a garden of herbs." So that a mode similar to this was, no doubt, in use among the children of Israel in their captivity.

The large bamboo wheel is a curious and ingenious piece of machinery used in rivers. It is turned by the force of the stream, and the hollow

LANDING-PLACES ON DANE'S ISLAND.

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bamboos attached to it, stopped up at one end and open at the other, fill themselves with water at the bottom of the wheel, and empty themselves into a trough at the top of it.

"So when a peasant to his garden brings

Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs,

And calls the floods from high to bless his bowers,
And feed, with pregnant streams, his plants and flowers;
Soon as he clears whate'er their passage staid,
And marks the future torrents with his spade,
Swift o'er the rolling pebbles, down the hills,
Louder and louder purl the falling rills ;
Before him scattering, they prevent his pains,
And shine in mazy wanderings o'er the plains."

There are three good landing-places on Dane's Island. The upper one is at the watering-place, the middle one is at a rocky point half a mile from the former, and the lower one, which is the most used, leading to both the villages on the island, is formed of granite blocks, having no cement but their own weight to keep them together. The roads are about two feet, or a little less, broad. If the people used either coaches, waggons, carts, horses, or wheelbarrows, they would find themselves not a little incommoded. There is nothing in the paths, for such they may be called, of Dane's Island, that would remind you of an English turnpike-road.

It is an odd circumstance; but if a Chinese buffalo be ever so quietly and industriously at

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