PERSIAN GULF REGION. -7 



recently the notice of the death of a Chinaman worth $5,000,000 in 



gold. 



One of the principal steamship lines between Hongkong and 

 Manila, nominally American, is reported to be controlled entirely by 

 its wealthy Chinese comprador. 



The biggest English shipping company in China, which owns a 

 large fleet of coasting steamers, employs only Chinese crews on its ships, 

 and even sends the crews to England to come out with the new steam- 

 ers they are building in large numbers. Even the new Japanese pas- 

 senger line on the Pacific employs Chinese stewards. Last year the 

 carrying trade of the China coast i- said to have increased over 4<> per 



cent. 



In L898, scarcely a single steam launch was owned in Canton, while 

 to-day 1 am informed that there are between 300 and 400, mostly 

 owned and in large part built entirely by Chinese. In the Chinese 

 dockyard at Canton over eighty of these big, strong launches were 

 turned out last year. 



The Hongkong and Wampoo Dock Company, of Hongkong, pays 

 so well that its stocks are quoted at &JW silver, and all of the laborers 

 are Chinese, only the managers and draftsmen being Europeans. 

 Plans are now in progress to build in Hongkong the largest dockyard 

 in the world, one slip of which is to be '.too feet long, or 100 feet 

 longer than the largest slip in the new Krupp yard at Kiel. This 

 work will be done by Chinese. Near Canton. I am informed, a 

 wealthy Chinese syndicate proposes to build dikes and reclaim several 

 thousand acres of land to be used for rice growing. 



An officer in the British army assures me that the Chinese arsenal 

 at Tientsin is manufacturing cannon and small arms which fall very 

 little short of being as good as those of European manufacture, and 

 this without even the supervision of Europeans. 



These are some of the facts that are being talked about here in the 

 East, and they are unmistakable straws to my mind, showing that the 

 awakening of China is going on with a rapidity which will soon aston- 

 ish those Westerners who refuse to recognize the course things are 

 taking. 



THE PERSIAN GULF REGION. 



Yokohama, Japan, April 8, 1902. 

 I have just returned from a trip up the Persian Gulf to Bagdad in 

 search of dates, hard wheats, and whatever else of interest was to be 

 found, and take the first occasion to send a brief account of conditions 

 in the Persian Gulf and lower Mesopotamia. The region is a difficult 

 one to get into, being a long way out of the beaten track of travel, 

 and I find that even in a place lying so near on the map as Bombay 

 there is little to be found out about it. 



