Nov. 22, 1858.] FROM SHANGHAI TO THE GULF OF PECHELI. 61 



the liberty of briefly transcribing the remarks contained in that 

 work. 



After mentioning that the walls of Teng-chow-fu enclosed more 

 ground than was occupied by houses, a remark, by-the-bye, appli- 

 cable to all Chinese cities, the writer proceeds to say, — 



" The bay, or rather road, of Teng-chow-fu, not only is open to the east- 

 ward and westward, but is not well sheltered from the northward, the 

 Mia-tao islands being too distant to break oif much of either wind or swell 

 from that quarter. The anchoring- ground consists, in great part, of hard, 

 sharp rocks ; and at about a mile and a quarter from the shore is a dangerous 

 reef, covered at high water, extending nearly a mile, east and west, round 

 which the water shoals so suddenly as to render any approach to it very 

 perilous. At Teng-chow-fu is constructed a kind of dock or basin for vessels 

 to load or discharge their cargoes. The entrance into it is between two piers, 

 and is from 30 to 40 feet in width. The ground near the sea-coast is richly 

 cultivated, and rises in a gentle ascent until terminated by high, broken, and 

 barren mountains, apparently granitic. The rise and fall of the tides in the 

 Strait of Mia-tao are about 7 feet. The flood-tide runs east, towards the sea ; 

 the ebb runs to the westward, into the Gulf of Pekin." 



This latter piece of information applies, perhaps, to the eddy tida 

 in the anchorage off Teng-chow-fu, for when the Furious struck 

 on an unknovni sandbank in passing through these straits (at a 

 later hour in the afternoon), we found the ebb-tide running, as it 

 should do, out of the Gulf of Pecheli; and it will be hereafter 

 shown that off the Peiho River the flood and ebb evidently, from 

 their direction, run in and out of the gulf. 



The evening of the 13th April was now closing in; we had a 

 rattling breeze behind us, with every token of an increase both in 

 the appearance of the sky and fall of the barometer, and I knew 

 that at this season dense fogs might be expected, with an almost 

 unknown sea before me. There was no anchorage east of the 

 Mia-tao Islands, and consequently no time was to be lost in pushing 

 through the straits, so as to have sea-room in the Gulf of Pecheli. 

 I had been cautioned by the Eussian officers who visited this 

 channel in 1857 not to trust the charts as to the limit of the exten- 

 sive shoal which runs out from the Shantung coast, and projects in 

 a N.W. direction, but to borrow freely upon the starboard hand, 

 as the islands of Chang -shan and Ta-he-san were steep to. Keeping 

 this in mind, seeing quite distinctly the sand-spit which runs off 

 from Chang-shan, and observing a large fleet of junks ahead, as well as 

 others running the same way as ourselves, I steered boldly through 

 the strait, but suddenly struck a sandbank almost as steep as a wall, 

 which brought the Furious up all standing, with her stem in 11 feet 

 water, her centre in 14 feet, and her afterpart in 5 fathoms. Of 

 course we had gone ashore as a man-of-war should do, according to 



