Photograph showing the Customs House, which is two storeys, first floor has shuttered windows, uplifted roof, white roundel on gable; elaborate gateway to right with four-tiered roof over panel bearing Chinese characters; edge of quay visible in foreground; European style building to left.

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, 'The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882'.