Appearance of Shanghai Harlour. 413 



Numbers of Chinese boats, from tlie smallest cloth-awning 

 sampan -^ro^^Xedihj one man with a paddle to the large jmik 

 with fifteen masts, and sentences painted along the bends, 

 were cruising in every direction. Ere long a Comprador found 

 his way on board, who according to custom undertook to 

 provide the frigate with everything she required. 



Commodore Wiillerstorff purposed proceeding with the 

 frigate to Shanghai ; but as it would be necessary to wait 

 for a fair wind, or else to engage another steam-tug, implying 

 a delay of several days, the naturalists were permitted to avail 

 themselves of the opportunity offered by the Comprador's boat 

 to proceed at once to Shanghai, which voyage we were two 

 hours and a half in performing. 



Wliile the number of European merchantmen that we 

 passed, some lying at anchor in front of Wusung, others sail- 

 ing up or down stream, was quite surprising, yet the sight 

 of the river at Shanghai far surpassed all expectation. Here, 

 close packed together in a channel rather narrower than else- 

 where, was drawn up tier after tier of shipping, a quite 

 impervious forest of masts, athwart which at intervals 

 the large warehouses of the European merchants indistinctly 

 loomed, lining the banks on either side. The newspaper lists 

 at the time of our visit gave the names of no less than 102 

 large American and European merchantmen in the Shanghai 

 River, in addition to which there were upwards of a thousand 

 native junks lying in the stream with their short crooked 

 masts, the most convincing evidence of the commercial im- 



