28th June.
ProckEDING on our way down the Great River with the Customs Returns of Trade for 1892 in our hands, we come next to Kiukiang. Great things were expected of this port when it was opened some thirty-two years ago, for it was the port of shipment for the products of all the country round the Poyang Lake, and it was expected that the green tea trade would centre there. 'I'hese hopes seemed to be realised in the first few years after its opening. There was soon a large community there, chiefly of tea inspectors, but the prosperity of the port did not last. Easy and cheap steam communication reduced it to little more than a port of transit: the teamen found it more to their advantage to send their black teas to Hankow or Shanghai for sale, and their green teas to Shanghai, and gradually the foreign population dwindled, and now there are only six foreign firms in the port, three of them steamer agents, and two Russian manufacturers of brick tea; the British and French Consuls, the Customs, and a large force of missionaries completing the community. Yhe value of the trade of the port, however, has not fallen off, except as far as regards the export of black tea, and M. de Bernitres is able to record in his report an increase in all the staple exports except tea, such as
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.