The community at present consists of forty-five people--English,
French, and German. The establishment of the electric telegraph has not
only favored business, but has enabled some of the senior partners of
the old firms to return home, leaving very junior partners or senior
clerks here, who receive their instructions from England.
Consequently, in some of these large family dwellings there are only
young men "keeping bach." There are a pretty English church, a club
bungalow, a book club, lawn tennis and croquet grounds, and a small
hall used for dancing, lectures and amateur theatricals. No wheeled
vehicle larger than a perambulator ever disturbs the quiet. People who
go into the city are carried in chairs, or drop down the river in their
luxurious covered boats, but for exercise they mostly walk on the bund,
and play croquet or lawn tennis. In this glorious weather the island
is very charming. It is possible to spend the whole year here, as the
tidal breezes modify the moist heat of summer; but the English children
look pale and languid even now.

Canton, January 4.--If I were to describe Canton, and had time for it,
my letters would soon swell to the size of Archdeacon Gray's quaint and
fascinating book, "Walks in Canton;" but I have no time, and must
content myself with brief sketches of two or three things which have
greatly interested me, and of the arrangement and management of the
city; putting the last first, if I am able "to make head or tail of
it," and to cram its leading features into a letter.

Viewing Canton from the "five-storied pagoda," or from the dignified
elevation of a pawn tower, it is apparent that it is surrounded by a
high wall, beyond which here and there are suburban villages, some
wealthy and wood-embosomed, others mean and mangy. The river divides it
from a very populous and important suburb. Within the city lies the