SHANGHAI. 123 



of the muddy solution held in its waters. Forty-five miles from the embouchure of the 

 Yangtsze-Kiang, you reach the Woosung anchorage, and a few miles further the city of 

 Shanghai, where the tributary you have been following divides into the Woosung and 

 Whampoa branches, at the fork of which the land ceded to the British is situated. 

 Here there is a splendid British consulate, churches, mansions, and foreign mercantile 

 houses. 



The old city was built over three centuries ago, and is encircled, as indeed are nearly 

 all large Chinese cities and towns, by a wrll twenty-four feet high and fifteen broad ; it 

 is nearly four miles in circumference. Shanghai was at one time greatly exposed to the 

 depredations of freebooters and pirates, and partly in consequence of this the wall is 

 plentifully provided with loop-holes, arrow-towers, and military observatories. The six 

 great gates of the city of Shanghai have grandiloquent titles, d la Chinoise. The 

 north gate is the "calm-sea gate;" the great east gate is that for "paying obeisance to 

 the honourable ones;" the little east one is "the precious girdle gate;" the great 

 south is the gate for "riding the dragon," while another is termed "the pattern 

 Phoenix." 



It oldest name is Hoo. In early days the following curious mode of catching fish was 

 adopted. Rows of bamboo stakes, joined by cords, were driven into the mud of the stream, 

 among which, at ebb tide, the fish became entangled, and were easily caught. This mode of 

 fishing was called koo, and as at one time Shanghai was famous for its fishing stakes, it 

 gained the name of the " Hoo city." The tides rise very rapidly in the river, and some- 

 times give rise to alarming inundations. Lady Wortley's description of the waters of the 

 Mississippi apply to the river- water of Shanghai ; " it looks marvellously like an enormous 

 running stream of apothecary's stuff, a very strong decoction of mahogany-coloured bark, 

 with a slight dash of port wine to deepen its hue; it is a mulatto- compjexioned river, 

 there is no doubt of that, and wears the deep-tanned livery of the burnished sun/' 

 Within and without the walls, the city is cut up by ditches and moats, which, some 

 years ago, instead of being sources of benefit and health to the inhabitants, as they were 

 originally intended to be, were really open sewers, breathing out effluvia and pestilence. 

 In some respects, however, Shanghai is now better ordered as regards municipal 

 arrangements. 



The fruits of the earth are abundant at Shanghai, and " Jack ashore " may revel in 

 delicious peaches, figs, persimmons, cherries, plums, oranges, citrons, and pomegranates, 

 while there is a plentiful supply of fish, flesh, and fowl. Grains of all kinds, rice, and 

 cotton are cultivated extensively ; the latter gives employment at the loom for thousands. 

 On the other hand there are drawbacks in the shape of clouds of musquitoes, flying- 

 beetles, heavy rains, monsoons, and earthquakes. The prognostics of the latter are a 

 highly electric state of the atmosphere, long drought, excessive heat, and what can only 

 be described as a stagnation of all nature. Dr. Milne, reciting his experiences, says : 

 "At the critical moment of the commotion, the earth began to rock, the beams and walls 

 cracked like the timbers of a ship under sail, and a nausea came over one, a sea-sickness 

 really horrible. At times, for a second or two previous to the vibration, there was heard 

 a subterraneous growl, a noise as of a mighty rushing wind whirling about under ground." 



