Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 350

1841.

Topographical Account of Chusan.

333

gates, each supported by an outer gate, and defenses at right angles to the inner gate, and distant from it about 20 yards. The wall is about 18 feet high and 15 feet thick, surmounted by a parapet of 4 feet high and 2 feet thick. This wall is surrounded on those sides where it looks on the rice fields by a canal running parallel to it, about 30 yards distant, the interval being, as all the flat land is, oc- cupied with rice grounds. The southern face of the wall runs due east and west 1000 yards, nearly in the centre of which is a gate-

way,

and at very irregular intervals five towers, each 8 yards square. From the eastern end of this, the wall turns due north 350 yards. In this face is another gateway and two of the towers just described; from the northern point of this face, the wall runs nearly straight 950 yards to the northwest, defended by three small towers, one of these being the extreme northern point of the city.

The fourth face, about 700 yards long, is crooked and irregular, with a gateway and three towers. At 200 yards from the western end, the line of wall ascends a steep hill, on the top of which is a large bastion. A fifth side, 800 yards long, joins this bastion to the western end of the southern face, and completes the wall. The hill spoken of above, as partly inclosed by the northwest angle, is a spur from a high peak of the surrounding hills, due west from the north- west bastion, and slopes down to the angle of the city.

The steeets are all roughly paved with granite, having sewers run. ning down the centre, covered with large slabs of the same stone; these sewers except, when cleansed, are at all times very offen. sive, especially in the narrow streets which are much crowded. None of the streets are more than 20 feet wide, and generally do not exceed 12 or 15 feet. The houses are low, and the great majo rity of them built of wood.

The city possesses no large gardens or squares, but a considerable extent of open ground on the eastern side is devoted to the cultiva tion of rice. The canal, which nearly surrounds the city, sends a large branch through a water-gate near the southern gate, which, dividing into many branches, traverses the greater part of the city in all directions. These branches form several large pools of foul stag- nant water into which every description of filth was thrown; and the street sewers also opening into the canals, rendered the latter ex- tremely offensive, and, during the warm weather, caused a most un- pleasant smell throughout the city. Added to this source of malaria, great numbers of large jars were placed at the corners of most of the treets, and in all vacant spaces, which were filled with a fermenting