A Presbyterian clergyman who turned to journalism, Prime edited, and later owned the Observer, originally founded by Samuel F.B. Morse's brother, Sidney. Prime's books on his travels in Europe and the Middle East were popular among American readers before and after the Civil War, but this trip to Asia, on which he wrote daily newspaper columns, seems to be missing from his travel books and autobiography. In this report from Canton, he describes some curiosities of Chinese food and drink, including birds-nest soup (he brought back a high-priced nest, which he expected to be "one of the earliest importations into America"); an animal diet of the impoverished that included rats, cats, and dogs; "excellent quality" pigs; and fruits that were "poor and destitute of flavor", though commonly used as money in games of chance by the Chinese, "the greatest gamblers in the world". While not an inviting description, and infused with racism, Prime's report is an early example of what would be the growing western interest in Chinese cuisine later in the 19th century.