CHAPTER IV.
CANTON AND KWANG-TUNG PROVINCE
Tea—Foreign Hongs and Houses—Schroffing.
Canton and the Kwang-tung province, as my reader is doubtless aware, continued for many years to be almost the only places in the vast Chinese Empire with which Europeans were acquainted. I need hardly do more here than refer those of my readers who take an interest in the obscured and chequered history of Canton, to an elaborate and interesting account, translated and published in China by Mr. Bowra, of the Imperial Customs. In this narrative it is stated that the first authentic notice of Kwang-tung province is found in the native writings of the Chow dynasty, B. C. 1122. The fifth century of our era is set down as the date at which Buddhist missionaries introduced their religious classics, and not only founded the sect which now predominates in the country, but led to the establishment of commercial relations between the Empires of India and China. Until recently, for the last two centuries foreign trade was confined to Canton, and nearly all
