Kuang-tung

42. The boat population of Canton, also called Tan-Ka otherwise Tan families,² is also known as Kün-lun slaves, and they are said to be connected with some native tribes in the north of the Kuang-tung province, consequently in proximity to the above Kün-lun mountains of Kuangsi.

We know that Italians were trading in the Black Sea ports, and the Arabs in the ports of southern China- in Fu-chien and Kuang-tung. Zayton (Ch'üan-chou in Fu-chien?) is mentioned by Marco Polo as 'the greatest port in the world'.

Were one to draw a profile of generalized altitudes of the landmass of Ling-nan and Kuei-chou Yun-nan in a southeast-northwest direction, the profile that emerges would represent a step-like formation from the sea to the Tibetan Plateau with five major "steps." The first would represent the Kuang-tung lowlands below about 1500-feet.

When Chinese from Fukien and Kuang-tung migrated to Taiwan, this warlike situation was obviously transplanted and was further aggravated by the even less efficient political control of the local government and the unique frontier conditions.

In the southern mountain region the mixed deciduous and evergreen broad-leafed forest were barely touched, and wild elephants and the rhinoceros roamed the malarial jungles of the province of Kuang-tung in the ninth century; but that was to change with migration from the north that reached a new momentum after the tenth century.