'Ici on parle Français,' indications of anything rather than ill-humour and oppression. In fact, the people of Tinghao (the capital) enjoyed opportunities of enriching themselves by industry during our occupation which may not very soon recur."
Chusan derives its importance, not only from its position near the mouth of the Yangtaekeang, and the high-road to the grand canal, but it possesses the finest climate imaginable, in the precise latitude of the tea and mulberry-growing provinces, and four times the area, with much more level surface than Hong-Kong—a name now almost proverbial for its fatality to troops.
Mr. Fortune, who visited Shanghae soon after the war had been brought to a satisfactory termination, said of that city, in his "Three Years' Wanderings in China," that there could be no doubt that in a few years it would not only rival Canton, but become a place of far greater importance. Sir J. F. Davis said of the same place, that the unrivalled advantages of its position, the friendliness of the native authorities, and the zeal and exertions of the consul, were all pledges of the prosperity of this port of trade, which may be expected in no long period to surpass Canton. It is not a little interesting to compare these prognostications of success with things as they actually are, and we are enabled to do so by Mr. Fortune's account of his late journey to the Tea Countries of China, undertaken to obtain seeds and plants of the tea-shrub for the Hon. East India Company's plantations in the north-west provinces of India. Mr. Fortune proceeded at once, in pursuit of the objects he had in view, to the most northerly of the five ports at which foreigners are permitted to trade.
I now found myself, he relates (September, 1848), after having been in England for nearly three years, once more in a China boat sailing up the Shanghae river towards the city. The first object which met my view as I approached the town was a forest of masts, not of junks only, which had been so striking on former occasions, but of goodly foreign ships, chiefly from England and the United States of America. There were now twenty-six large vessels at anchor here, many of which had come loaded with the produce of our manufacturing districts, and were returning filled with silks and teas. But I was much more surprised with the appearance which the shore presented than with the shipping. I had heard that many English and American houses had been built, indeed one or two were being built before I left China; but a new town, of very considerable size, now occupied the place of wretched Chinese hovels, cotton-fields, and tombs. The Chinese were moving gradually backwards into the country, with their families, effects, and all that appertained unto them, reminding one of the aborigines of the west, with this important difference, that the Chinese generally left of their free will, and were liberally remunerated for their property by the foreigners. Their chief care was to remove, with their other effects, the bodies of their deceased friends, which are commonly interred on private property near their houses. Hence it was no uncommon thing to meet several coffins being borne by coolies or friends to the westward. In many instances, when the coffins were uncovered, they were found totally decayed, and it was impossible to remove them. When this was the case, a Chinese might be seen holding a book in his hand, which contained a list of the bones, and directing others in their search after these the last remnants of mortality.
It is most amusing to see the groups of Chinese merchants who come from some distance inland on a visit to Shanghae. They wander about along the river side with wonder depicted in their countenances. The square-rigged
