You may be puzzled to learn of this heightened vigilance, so I should explain that in the last couple of weeks, while Jacqua and I were happily absorbed in our own pursuits, the rest of Canton has been preoccupied with matters of an altogether different order. Although I had paid scant attention to these developments, I was not wholly oblivious to them for Zadig Bey has been kind enough to pass on a few little snippets.

The long-awaited Yum-chae – the Imperial Commissioner – arrived ten days ago with a great deal of fanfare (the whole city was given a holiday – for which Jacqua and I were most grateful since it allowed us to devote an entire day to our artistic pursuits!). It seems that the Commissioner has been sent here with an explicit mandate to put an end to the opium trade and he appears to be quite determined to do exactly that. It is because of his edicts that the local mandarins and policemen have become a great deal more officious of late.

But whether these considerations had anything to do with the precautions of our journey I forbore to ask, knowing full well that a truthful answer would be impossible to obtain. In any event, it was not till our boat turned into the tranquil creeks of Fa-Tee that Ah-med and I emerged once again into the daylight – and now I discovered that our destination was not the Pearl River Nursery, as I had thought, but rather the walled estate that sits hidden in its lee. You will remember perhaps that I had earlier described this compound as having the look of a fortress? In no way would I amend that description except to say that it now had the look of a citadel under siege, with armed men posted all around it.

We approached the compound not by land, but by water – for the compound has its own jetty, hidden away at the back. There we were met by a paltan of grim-faced men who led us quickly to the great red gates that pierce the walls. It was all rather disconcerting and peculiar but when the heavy gates swung open everything changed.

Nowhere on earth, I suspect, is the importance of portals as well understood as in China. In this country, gateways are not merely entrances and exits – they are tunnels between different dimensions of existence. Here, as at the threshold of Punhyqua’s garden, I was visited by the feeling that I was stepping into a realm that existed on some plane other than the ordinary.

Ahead lay a garden, not unlike Punhyqua’s, an artfully made landscape of streams and bridges, lakes and hills, rocks and forests, with winding pathways and wave-like walls. A part of the enchantment of these gardens is that they amplify the effects of the seasons. I had seen Punhyqua’s garden in November, when it was cloaked in the wistful hues of autumn; now, spring was all around us, and nowhere more so than here – the trees and plants were bright with bloom and the air was perfumed with the scent of flowers.