When looking on this scene my old Chinaman, Akum, came up. I do not think he has yet been introduced to my readers. He was a faithful servant, or boy, as they are here called, about forty years of age, who had been in my employment in Singapore, and afterwards turning trader, had lost his small capital. "Well," he said, "what are you looking at, Sir?"— "At the beautiful view," I replied. — "Yes," he said; "I wish I had the smallest of those hills; I would settle there, on the top, watching my gardeners at work below, and when I saw one labourer more industrious than the rest I would reward him with a wife."
He spoke to me often afterwards about this ideal hill on which he hoped one day to sit and reward the virtue of his servants. He was a disciple of Confucius.
Hereafter I may say something as to the multitudinous uses to which the bamboo can be applied. There is good snipe and pheasant-shooting in this quarter.
We noticed quantities of the reeds employed for making Canton mats. Mats of this sort are manufactured extensively in three places — viz., Tun-kun, Lintan and Canton; they afford occupation to many thousand operatives, and are indeed an important industry of the province of Kwang-tung. About 112,000 rolls, measuring 40 yards apiece, are said to be annually exported from Canton.
About two hundred miles above Canton we visited the most remarkable object which we had encountered in the course of our journey. This is the celebrated grotto of Kwan-yin, the goddess of mercy, formed out of a natural cave in the foot of a limestone precipice which rears its head high above the stream. The mouth of the cavern opens on the water's edge, and the interior has been enlarged in some places by excavation
