A FLOATING SLUM.

Stand beside the imperial custom-house at Canton and let the eye range down the river toward Hongkong. As far as the sight can reach lie boats, boats, and again boats. These are no ordinary craft, mere vessels of transport plying hither and thither, but the countless homes of myriad Chinese, in which millions of human beings have been born, have lived, and have died. They are the dwellings of the very poor, who live in them practically free from rent, taxes, and the other burdens of the ordinary citizen.

The Tankia—which means boat-dwellers—as the denizens of these floating houses are called, form a sort of caste apart from the rest of the Cantonese. The shore-dwellers regard them as belonging to a lower social order; and indeed they have many customs, peculiar to themselves, which mark them as a separate community. How the swarming masses of them contrive to support existence is a mystery, but their chief mode of employment is in carrying merchandise and passengers from place to place.