Feb. 13, I860.] MICKIE ON THE GULF OF PE-CHE-LI AND LEO-TUNG. 59 



carries but a small load over the hills, and a driver is required for 

 every two animals. 



In winter the whole population lies nearly dormant. 



Che-fow is the general depot of trade in the Gulf. The principal 

 imports are English and American piece-goods, opium, sugar, and 

 Chinese paper from Ningpo. Alum and Shanghai cotton are also 

 imported to a small extent, together with sundry other Chinese 

 cargo. The great exports are bean-cake, peas, and pea-oil. Trade 

 opens in March, when the ice breaks up, and closes in October. 

 Coal is a regular article of local trade. It is found at several 

 places along the coast, but is soft and dirty, and dearer than 

 foreign coal would be. 



Sir E. Muechison, in returning thanks to Mr. Mickie for his communica- 

 tion, said it was highly creditable to one of our leading merchants to employ 

 such an excellent observer as that gentleman. Formerly it was too much the 

 practice among English merchants to keep good things to themselves, but now 

 they seemed to have a satisfaction in communicating all the information they 

 obtained, whereby commerce might be extended. He was happy to see sitting 

 near him his friend Mr, Hamilton Lindsay, the gentleman who had engaged Mr. 

 Mickie to visit these countries, and who having some personal acquaintance 

 with the country would, he hoped, address the meeting. 



Mr. Hamilton Lindsay, f.r.g.s., said he felt a peculiar interest in this 

 contribution of Mr. Mickie, because some twenty-eight years ago, in 1832, it 

 was his lot to add in some small degree to our geographical knowledge of a 

 country immediately adjoining those which had been visited by Mr. Mickie. 

 In 1832, under the auspices of Mr. Charles Marjoribanks, then the head of 

 the Company's factory in China, he made a voyage along the coast of China, 

 and visited in his course the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, Shanghae, 

 thence round the promontory of Shantung to the port of Wei-hae Wei ; from 

 there he struck off as far north as he could to the promontory of Corea. There, 

 in a perfectly new tract of country, he fell in with a magnificent harbour, which 

 he named after his friend Mr. Marjoribanks, and also made some discoveries 

 which the Geographical Society honoured him by calling an Island after his 

 name. He thought a great deal of credit was due to Mr. Mickie. He went in 

 charge of a purely commercial speculation, to see what could be done in 

 carrying out commercial operations with the Chinese, and had it not been for 

 our operations at the mouth of the Peiho at that time, he might have acquired 

 more extended information. Sufficient, however, had been gained to prove the 

 probability of important commercial relations with that part of the world. 



Sir John Davis, f.r.g.s., observed that the interesting paper just read 

 bore testimony to the extraordinary propensity of the Chinese to spread them- 

 selves by colonization. Du Halde, who wrote about a century and a half ago, 

 gave this as a reason for inserting the Tartar and not the Chinese names, 

 in a map of Manchouria, constructed by the Jesuits — " Of what use would it 

 be to a traveller in Manchouria to know that the river SayhaUen (the Amoor) 

 is called by the Chinese Heloong Keang, or River of the Black Dragon, since 

 he has no business with them, and the Tartars, with whom he has to deal, 

 know nothing of this name?" Now Hue, in his late work on Tartary and 

 Thibet, remarks that at present the tables are completely turned, and the 

 Chinese have nearly displaced the Manchous in their original country, from 

 the north-east of the Great Wall to the Amoor. " It is just," he observes, 

 " as if one was travelling in a province of China." The paper of this evening 



