414 Voyage of the Novara. 



portance which this place has attained within the short space 

 of time that has elapsed since by the Treaty of Nankin in 

 1842 foreign factories were authorized to be erected here. 



On the shore the flags of the Consulates of the more im- 

 portant seafaring nations fluttered gaily in the breeze from 

 lofty flag-staffs on the top of the imposing buildings. Hardly 

 had we landed ere we were surrounded by an ungainly 

 crowd of Chinese coolies, who with their bamboo staves 

 began such a serious battle among themselves for the right 

 of carrying our baggage, that it was only by the interposition 

 of the police that several were not left on the spot severely 

 wounded. 



The intelligence that there was in Shanghai not a single 

 house of entertainment, such as we understand by the name 

 of '' hotel " in Europe, was the less agreeable, as the dwellings 

 of the resident Europeans, where, under ordinary circum- 

 stances, strangers are received with the utmost hospitality, 

 happened at present to be occupied by the oflicers of the nu- 

 merous war-ships, as well as by members of the two embassies. 

 The only place where we could be received was what^ is 

 known as the Union Hotel, a den in the fullest sense of the 

 word, in which we passed one of the most uncomfortable 

 nights we ever remember. Myriads of mosquitoes, the true 

 blood-thirsty '' gallinipper," loud-shouting drunken seamen, 

 dogs howling, intolerable heat, which not even a tremendous 

 thunder-storm that broke forth during the night could as- 

 suage, — such were some of the amenities of our reception) 



