where Gough Island and flats now impede navigation, and from its mouth to the Settlement the river was a much wider and more mposing stream than it is at present. Such was Shanghai in March 1845 when. the ship Panama, the first American merchantinan. that entered the port, Iny at anchor where the P. & 0, buoy' is now moored, in company with a French brig, and an' English sloop of war; the only other foreign vessels in the river being two or three' opium schooners at Woosung. The Panama was 612 tons register, a large ship at that time, and was almost a facsimile of the hulk Ariel now moored off the Bund, which in 1850 and perhaps earlier was a crack American tes clipper. For many years the foreign vessels. visiting Shanghai were few in number, of small tonnage, and of more varied nationalities than now, it being not unusual to see Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, and the various Germanic tings flying in the harbour. In April, 1850, the P. & 0. Co.'s. paddle steamer Lady Mary Wood, 553 tons gross and 250 horse power, opened steam communication with Hongkong, carrying only passengers, the mails, treasure, opium and silk. She ran between the ports for about nine months, making her Qelivering the mails in Shanghai in from passages in from seven to nine days, and
fifty-one to sixty-six days from London, She was then withdrawn, as she was losing money, and the mercantile body of Shanghai declined contributing the one thousand dollars monthly towards defraying her expenses that the P. & 0, Ca. demanded,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.