HBA 224 25 5 (25 es 25 Ce 4 6 Lis AH es As Dh A EA A HARA ERED
A stranger! Well, not quite, for there is the Shanghai of the Past still lingering under the shadows made by Shanghai of the Present and it requires another absence of say, but a year to discover the old settlement gone. Gone for ever; and then indeed is the absentee a stranger. With each successive return to this land that borders the broad sweep of the fretful Huangpu comes the irresistible impression that almost every passing face belongs to one who is not the stranger. To them Woosung as it was when first viewed from the deck of the "Alexandria" or "Victoria" (now as ancient to the present generation as were the "Samson" and "Gutzlaff"' to the past) seemed, no doubt, the little heard of, always been there, place which marks the -approach to Shanghai. And yet, except for the cluster of houses that flank the mouth of the Woosung creek and a few houses such as the Telegraph station and the Lighthouse, and, yes, the old mud forts, all is new, the product of recent years. It is only in the last ten years or so that much has been done there. The long, stone waterguider, the stone embankment, the hotels, the railway workshops and wharf, the Customs depot, all have taken shape in accord with the movement forward in the mother city which has made of it something new to the frequent absentee. For a long while Woosung lay like a dead thing wrapt in a "lying in state" silence, The junks came and went as did the few daily trains and all was still. Sunday, and other holidays, found a few visitors looking out upon the horizon with minds far away in the Homelands. It is different now. Between thoughts that must come with the sight of open-water protrade reminders that there is more to look at than a soul-stirring vista.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.