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ride into Canton revealed thousands of square miles of rice paddies, but no electric lines, no telephone lines, no machines more sophisticated than bicycles and a few crude three-wheeled tractors. The major farm equipment was the blue-black water buffalo, and for most of the ride we could have been looking at China a thousand years ago. Canton was hot, humid and in several places it smelled like an open sewer. Dust was everywhere. No buildings had been painted since the Revolution, except for the new hotels for foreign tourists. But thousands of bicycle bells chinged in the crowded streets and not one person wore a Mao jacket or hat. Blue jeans and T-shirts were standard attirethe shirts emblazoned with Mickey Mouse, Nike and any Western product, making us feel slightly welcome. We had twenty-four hours before our hydrofoil would take us down the Pearl River and back to Hong Kong, and we were a surprise to the clerks at the accommodations desk at the Canton train station. They told us there were no rooms left at the tourist hotels, and we could see their dismay at having to give us a room at a Chinese hotel. On entering our hotel room, Gayle gave her first relaxed laugh since leaving New York, pointing to the "American Standard" stamped on tub, sink and toilet. (There had been no toilets at the train stations, only holes in the SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990
"The Flying Cloud Entering Hong Kong in 1851" oil on canvas, 36 x 28. The immortal Flying Cloud, most famous of Donald McKay's clippers, built for the New York-to-San Francisco passage around Cape Horn, went on regularly from San Francisco to China. Here, she comes to anchor in Hong Kong after a fast passage from Frisco. The brig Porpoise, at left, is being refitted for service on the Pearl River to suppress piracy.
"The Challenge Leaving Hong Kong in 1861 " oil on canvas, 50x38. William Webb's 224-foot extreme clipper of1851 has seen some hard sailing after ten years in the China trade . Her single topsails have been cut into upper and lowers. The vessel on the right is the Royal Navy's former ship-of-the-line Princess Charlotte, used as a floating hospital, receiving ship and sheer hulk.
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