13th July. Wuew man has been brought to acknowledge that the distinction which he is so fond of drawing between animate and inanimate nature is but one of those pleasant little fictions which he 80 cleverly uses to hide his own ignorance, he will have taken a great step forward towards true insight into the real nature of the world around him, When he believes that artificers are right when they talk of the affections and moods of the tools and materials with which they work, how, for example, the steel will cut one day and not the next, he will be prepared ty ackuowledge that roads too have their life history, their nps, and downs, their changes and chances, as if endowed with saortal life.' We do not propose to enter upon the psychical question whether these moods are subjective rather than objective, neither shall we do more than hi at the "'it's-all-due-to-the-weather theory. We shall simply take things as we find them, At the outset the first thing to be remarked with regard to our "noble Bund" is its intensely foreign character. There is nothing Chinese about it, The native is seen there, sometimes too uiuch so; bat although he is on the scene, he is not of it. He is an interloper in his own land; he is out of keeping with his surroundings, If he be a usual visitor from some inland town or village, his interest is intense. He saunters along with frequent stops, and the open-eyed wonder of a child at a transformation scene, If, he thinks, these things be real, and no figment of the fancy, then of what wasteful extra-valance is this outlander from over the sea not guilty! Next to the experience of a new sensation in one's own person, ranks the pleasure of watching it in others. Our unsophisticated native stares with open mouth at the magnitude of the buildings; his eye climbs the flagstaffs, only to wonder what they are; he minutely examines the iron railings, he stoops to touch the asphalt pavement wondering all the while at the Titanic nature of the quarry from which he thinks the slabs must have come. 'I'he close-ent' lawns are a revelation, the Cnstomns clock a never-ending source of wonder, and the rattling rush of the broker's traps convincing evidence of the whirlwind hurry and bustle which divide western life from the stately ease and dignity of his own.
No; there is nothing Chinese about the Bund. Its grassy promenade looks its very best when dotted all over with Wentern womankind imbued with what Kinglake in Hothen describes as the "prime duty of being pretty and when the south-east breeze of a summer eve is bringing ozone from the unseen but not far-distant sea. Then the is at its greenest, and the trees at their best—the best the lopper has left to them. We have not such an array of planes as our neighbours on the French side, but we have what is much better—variety, a variety which weeding and judicious importation might improve. Asit is, we fear that to the casual passer-by one tree is much the same as the next, as was the primrose to the Philistine in the much-quoted stanza, The busy broker would probably be more than surprised if instead of a question of rates he were asked the names of half-a-dozen of the trees under whose shade he careers day after day.
He has something else to think of, he would say. For besides being beautiful with its grass and its" trees, the Bund is the abode of money. Metaphorically it is paved from end to end with what was once a precious metal.. Never through business hours is it free from the chink of dollars. It is here that the shroff attains his apotheosis; here for many a long year has the dogma of infallibility been promulgated, accepted, and acted upon. The shroff is the Pope of the silver cult, His word is law. Nowhere else can he exercise to its fullest extent that subtle discrimination which by touch, weight, and tone degrades this coin as number two, and rejects that with the sneering formula belong Blass, Being the very centre and avenue of Shanghai business the Bund puts on one of its most bustling phases a little before nine. The humble clerk is hurrying to his daily round of quill-driving, the shipping fraternity to their usual routine, the piece-goods man to his " rags," and the teaman to his cups, Day after day, yearufter year, we meet the same faces almost at the same points, and, with the gregarious instinct think that some day perhaps. we may know who's who, but the knowledge is long in coming. It is only the broker who knows everybody, and itis to him that for the remainder of the business day the Bund owes most of its bustle. The lordly taipan rolls up at about ten o'clock, but the broker from the preliminary fore gathering ov the steps of the Bank, and the snatched interview with the manager, is hard at it all day scattering eighths and sixteenths wherever he geez. His rattle-basket-trap sends the coolies flying in every direction as, at something less than twenty miles an hour, it bumps along from hollow to bump on the uneven roadway. Why one broker {should persistently try to induce a sceptical public to believe he can write readable notes under these circumstances is best known to himself, Many men with all the assistance of a stable base on terra firma, a solid table, and every accessory to boot, cannot write legibly; but then the broker is not an ordinary man, So far as local matters!go, it may be taken for granted that what he cannot do ought not to be attempted, and what he does not know is not knowledge, When harsh thoughts of life and its selfishness crowd upon the mind it is good to think of the broker. "In the know" is, nothing keeps him poor—when he is poor—but his extreme altruism. He might if he chose be a multi-millionaire, for does he not know how everything is going to turn out? But no, he shares his "good things" with his clients, and goes on his honest way, poor but persuasive. What unselfishness! What nobility!
We have taken the broker as our type of Bund bustle. As an incaruation of its solidity and commercial respectability wa should choose a banker and a merchant; the latter rather than the former for obvious reasons. Our typical merchant is a stately personage well on in middle life. He belongs to that type which looks upon the Bund as its own. If the trees obstruct the view from his verandah he has them lopped. "We are not going to allow fom, Dick, and Harry to do what they like with our Bund," he says; "Our Bund has grown from a mud bank to a stately street, and we mean to keep it so!" Would any old resident wish to say him nay? For indeed it is commerce that has made Shanghai what it is, and it is but right that commercial men should continue to guide its course.
We cannot spare space to quote Henry Norman's praise of our great thoroughfare. Most reading people know it already. Neither can we pause to truce its history, interesting us that would be. 'I'here is little that is new, as we understand that term, on our present Bund. It was practically the same in the seventies as it is to-day. Here and there an old hong has disappeared to make room for a modern successor. The last link which bound it to a long Chinese past was the old Custom-house. Many people regret the loss of the picturesque old temple with its curved roof and old-world sir, It certainly had more of beauty than the stiff and formal pile which replaced it. There is however in the new huilding a characteristic common to the Bund buildings in general, an ait of permanency which to an old resident in China accustomed to the jerry-built native style gives strength and solidity to the scene.
Volumes might be written on old Bund traditions, and when Tales of Old Shanghai shall be compiled there will be many a good story. to be told and many a hearty laugh to be laughed over the follies, the escapades, and the frolics of early settlement days.
We have sean the business Bund; we have hinted at the Ladies' Bund; we must not forget the Children's Bund. It is usually but a small section of the whole length, and that mainly enclosed as the Public Garden. But as the fiery sun sinks down in the west, this section becomes alive with innocent mirth, with romp, and frolic, and exuberant happi-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.