80th August.
To old residents in China the present and prospective activity on the Pacific is'simply marvellous. Tt is less than forty years since all the mails to and from the United States went by the English or French mails vid England. When the treaty ports on the Yangtze were opened, there was a brisk demand for river steamers. Some came up fiom Australia, among them being a walking-beam steamer built in the States, the Governor-General, and two or three including the Willamette and the John T. Wright made their way across the Pacific from San Francisco.
The latter was very fortunate in getting across at all) She was a small light-draft. paddle-wheel boat with one steeple engine, and she was ultimately lost in 1864 or thereabouts in a typhoon on the Langshan Crossing, her engine and boiler being recovered and put into a new hull built by Captain J. P. Roberts at the Old Dock. Passengers from China to San Francisco had to go by sailing-vessel when they could find one going which was not often, the first merchant steamer to cross the Pacific from China being a small paddle-wheel wa beam steamer, the Oriflimme, which had proved her seaworthiness by riding out a typhoon in the Formosa channel, in which two English screw steamers, the Corea belonging to the P. & O. Company, and the Chanticleer, which left Hongkong in company with the Oriflamme, disappeared and have never been heard of since. The first company to start aline of steamers across the Pacific to China and Japan was the Pacific Mail S. S. Ca., their pioneer steamer being a large wooden walking-beam paddle boat, the Colorado, whose visit to Shanghai, on her maiden voyage, caused a great sensation here. She drew too much water to come beyond the Tungsha Lightship, and a steamer belonging to Messrs. Dent Ca., the Yesso, was chartered by the agents of the company to take passengers and visitors down to her. Four other large paddlewheel steamers, built of wood and each with single walking-beam engine, the America, China, Japan, and Great Republic, followed the Colorado. They were too large to come up to Shanghai, and they plied between San Francisco and Hongkong, calling at Yokohama, the other Japan ports and Shanghai being served by a line of smaller steamers belonging also.to the Pacific Mail Ca. the Costa Rica, Golden Age, New York, Oregonian, and Nevada, the last being avery fine boat originally built for Messrs. Dent & C". This local line, with the wharf at Shanghai and other property, was subsequently sold to the Mitsu Bishi Company, one of the Northern Pacific Railway, including component parts of the present: the fine fleet of the Glen line.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.