1842
Trip to Canton in the Constellation
678
ART. VI. Reminiscences of a trip up the river of Canton, on
board the U. S. frigate Constellation, in the spring of 1842. COMMODORE Lawrence Kearny, commanding the U. S. squadron in the East Indies, arrived off Macao on the 22d of March. Sundry papers having been placed in his hands, requiring correspondence with the provincial authorities at Canton, he determined to proceed up the river, and invited the writer of these inemoranda to accompany him. On the 11th of April, a little before noon, we stepped into the barge from the Praya Grande; and in an hour or so reached the Constella- tion, lying off in the Macao Roads, five or six miles from shore. Two pilots were already ou board, and the men, keeping time to the music, soon raised the anchor, and spread the sails to a fine breezc, which in a few hours carried us above Lintin. Early the next morn- ing, the frigate was again under way, and about noon came to an anchor a mile or two above Wangtong, where a small party went on shore. Not a human being was found alive on the island; and we sought in vain for the graves of the hundreds who were buried there the year before. The forts, like all the others at the Bogue, are heaps of ruins, in some places hardly one stone being left upon ano- ther. Even the poor fishermen avoid these recently so strongly for- tified places, as if they were now accursed and abandoned by their gods. The only remnants of man that we saw, were some boues that had been deposited in an urn. The urn had been broken-by a shot or by some careless hand-and the bones were scattered upon the ground.
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At sunrise, on the morning of the 13th, the Constellation moved over the Second Bar; and at 4 P. M. took up a good berth in the southern channel (sometimes called the Blenheim passage) just below Dane's island. Of this channel we have seen two surveys-one by commander Belcher, executed in a very superior manner, and extend- ing almost to Fátshán-of which the outlines are given, as the town was seen from the mast-head of the surveying vessel. This channel unites with the Macao Passage about two miles south of Canton, and both are at present very strongly defended. Some of the batteries and fortified camps are within sight of Whampoa. This channel has never been opened to foreigners.
The Constellation is, we believe, the first vessel from the govern- ment of the United States that ever anchored m the Chinese inner
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