D6 NAMES AND NICKNAMES OF THE 



history. I have discovered quite enough of such words to 

 know that there was once a very close connexion between 

 ancestors of the people now inhabiting China, and those of 

 the people who spoke the ancient Sanskrit. That, however, 

 is not the matter immediately before us. It was suggested 

 by the name of our main north and south thoroughfare, 

 The Bund. Is there any history contained in that? Just a 

 little. The word is Indian, and means an embankment. 

 Had it not been that our first British officials here came from 

 India, we should never have had such a name. We might 

 possibly have used instead the "Tan," or bank, of the 

 natives, or as we so often hear it in the dialect, Huangpu 

 Tan. Then again, there is the Tiendong Road. That is 

 merely the transferred name of a place, with not a scrap of 

 history in it that I know of. But wait a moment. What 

 name is the road known by to the natives? They call it the 

 Kwangtung Chieh (He ^ Sf), and that Kwangtung suggests 

 something. It suggests those seventeen months' occupation 

 of the city in 1853-4-j5. It suggests a time when the very 

 name Cantonese stank in the nostrils of the local people to 

 such an extent that the southerners were driven out of the city. 

 It was in the Kwangtung Chieh, then far out in the fields, 

 that they made for themselves huts to dwell in. So even 

 within the short compass of our settlement story the old 

 practice of enshrining history in names has come into play. 



Other old read names maintain their freshness. The 

 Nanking Read is not likely soon to lose the ancient native 

 name of the Ta Maloo (^ & &), or Too Moloo, as it is 

 locally, while those south of it are usually known amongst 

 the natives by numbers. Thus the Kiukiang Road is the 

 Nie (~) Moloo, i.e. the second Horse Road, the Hankow 

 Road the San ( H) or Say Moloo, and so on. In the begin- 

 ning, road names were given in rather an unsystematic 

 fashion. Szechuen Road was Bridge Street, the Nanking 

 Road was Park Lane, the Kiangsi Road Church Street, and 

 the Kiukiang Road was known as the Rope Walk. But in 

 Sir Walter Medhurst's time a change was made. Roads 

 running north and south were called after the names of 

 Chinese provinces, those running east and west after the 

 names of cities. In recent times owing to the great growth 

 of the settlement this rule has been more honoured in the 

 breach than in the observance. Exactly why the Shantung 

 Read should be known to the natives as the "Street of 

 Expectant Peace" is not clear. Perhaps it was prophetic. 

 The road was destined to be the Fleet Street of Shanghai, 

 -and there are, of course, no persons more given to "seek 

 peace and ensue it" than journalists! 



