问答题 In the Qing dynasty, Canton was one of the most prominent cities in the country. There were others that excelled it in the beauty of their natural surroundings, and in the historic memories that clustered around them, but it stood pre-eminent as one of the strong cities of the empire. The lofty walls that surrounded it, and the massive gates, through which the teeming crowds passed in and out, had an imposing air of strength that seemed to bid defiance to all the world, and to laugh to scorn any attempt that might be made to capture them. It was one of the wealthiest places in the kingdom. Like other Chinese cities, it had its narrow lanes, where the poorer people lived, and long line of streets where the smaller shops were opened; but it was conspicuous for the number of its large and extensive business houses, where trade on a large scale was carried on. Here could be found, as hardly as anywhere else in the empire, firms where the finest silks and satins, and elegant embroidery of every design, could be procured. Not only articles of native manufacture could be bought, but also those from far-from distant cities, which had been carried over to lofty mountains and down great rivers to this famous mart. Here, too, were to be found the most beautiful vases from well-known potteries, painted with the most exquisite, the secret of which was known only to their designers, and has since been lost to the world. The warehouses, filled with the fragrant leaf that came from the centre of China, to be shipped away to England, explained in some measure the presence of the English ships that lay anchored in the river. The city was alive and bustling, and had the air of a pressure of business upon it. Men from the region around, and from the far interior provinces, could be seen in its streets. Tea merchants from Hankou, silk merchants from Soochow, makers of the famous pottery from the Kiangsi province, merchants from distant cities coming to buy and sell, mandarins of all degrees with their retinues and speaking the different dialects of their far-off homes, so that they were strangers in language, amongst the very people they had come to rule, all spoke of the hold that this mighty city had upon remote places in the empire.无