China by Harry Alverson Franck — Read

Kwangtung, the province in which Canton is located, is as big as some of our largest states, and rich and important. From Sze Yap, the Four Districts, on the western side of the Canton delta, come nearly all the Chinese laundrymen and restaurant-keepers and other Chinese who live in the United States. In fact a large proportion of the Chinese in all other parts of the world are from Sze Yap. If you ask them they may say they are from Canton. But that is either because they know by experience that you have never heard of Sze Yap and that you may know of Canton, or because they mean by that name the province of Kwangtung.

On the junk that carried me from the Bund in Canton to Kongmoon, principal port of the Four Districts, my cabin was much like a piano-box turned on its side, and the queerly shaped boat was piled with Chinese cargo until it looked like a haystack floating down the river. First we went upstream a little way, towed by a launch that showered sparks and cinders on us, and steered by half a dozen men who walked back and forth along a cleated board at the stern, pushing an enormous oar that stuck out behind. When we wished to warn another boat, a man beat with a hammer on a hanging piece of iron. Roosters among the cargo did their part in helping to keep us awake nearly all night.