It certainly excites some surprise find that so active a commerce is carried on in a place which has hardly any commercial relation with foreign countries. But our surprise will cease if we consider that there is no other harbour on the Chinese coast between 30° and 37° N. lat, or between the bay of Ningpo on the south, and the peninsula of Shantung on the north." On this tract of coast the two largest rivers of China, the Yellow River and the Yang-We-kiang. fenter the sea, and they Dung great quantities of earthly satter," which they deposit along the coast, and thus render the whole tract inaccessible to boats beyond the size of a fAshing-barge. The Yang-tse-king discharges Itself into the Yellow Sea by a broad estuary, in the centre of which is the Island of Tsong-ming; the Woo-sung falls into the Yang-tse-kiang near its embouchure, on its southern side, and being the first river which is deep enough for the purposes of naviga. tion, the whole maritime commerce of this' tract is concentrated at Shang-nae, The country which ies at the back of the coast is the most populous part of China, and contains many, very large towns, among which those Soochoo-fo0 and Hang.choo, probably contain a million of inhabitants each, and there are others which may vary between 1,000,- 000° "and $00,000, among which the ancient capital of China, Nankin, to all of which they have access by the Yang-tse-kiang, which the tide ascends for more than 200 miles, and the Great Canal Nankin is the capital of the prov Seated on the south bank of jer, near 32° N, lat, and 117° Tong. and" about 120 mites from its mouth. This rinths, constructed of real and artificlat rocks piled curiously one above the other."
Active Commerce Previous to the late expedition ttle was known of a place which appears to be the principal emporium of Eastern Asia, and whose commerce active as that of any other lace on the globe, not, even London, excepted. It is certainly a very remarkable circumstance that such commercial town had only once been visited by a European vessel, and. that not before 1832, when' the: Amherst, under the command of Capt. Lindsay, entered th Capt.' Lindsay arrival at, Woo only a mile above the mouth of the river of that name), T was go struck with the vast quantity of junks enter. ing the river, that T caused them to be counted for several successive days, The result was, that in seven days upwards of 400 junks, varying "in size from 100 400" tons, passed Woo-sung, and proceeded to Shang-hae. During the first part of our stay most of these vessels were the north.country junks with "four masts, from Teen-tsin (than-tsin on the Petho) and various Bai, of Manchow, Tarary, four end from which place formed a great portion of their cargo. But during. the latter part or our stay, the Fokien (Pollan) junks began to' pour in to the number of thirty or forty per day." Many of these were from. "Formosa, Eastern and the commerce of Shang-hae is as active the whole year round as Capt. Lindsay found it to be in the month of July, we come to the conclusion that this port is annually visited by shipping to the amount of 5,000,. 000" tons. In 1838 the shipping that entered the port of London did not "quite amount to 4,000,000 tons; namely, 1,061,923 tons employed the foreign trace, and 2,908,176 tons in the coasting-trade.
But os Capt. Lindsay observes that the winters in these parts are rather severe, and that the snow sometimes Hes several feet deep for' more than a _month, we may suppose that the aviation of the Woo-sung is anually interrupted for four or six weeks, and thus the commerce of Shang-hae would be reduced nearly a level with that of London. But though the commerce of Shang-hae is perhaps more active than that of the British metropolis, its sphere is much town was the capital of the empire to the end of the thirteenth century, rest town on dea of ite then extent, the Chinese historical records say, that if two horsemen were to go out in the morning at same gate, and were to gallop round by opposite ways, they would not meet before night. This is certainly fan exaggeration. The Jesuits, when surveying the town for the purpose of making a plan of It, found that the circuit of the exterior walls was 37 lis, © or nearly—twenty miles, This agrees pretty well with the description given by Ellis, who estimates the distance between the gate near the river and the Procelain Tower at about six miles, and says that an area of not less than thirty miles was diversified with groves, houses, cultivation, and hills, and; irregular polygon; and is confirmed by Sir Hugh Gough in his despatches, Who says "It would not be easy to five a clear description of this vast city, or rather of the vast space encompassed within its walls, I shall therefore, only observe that the northern' angle reaches to within about 700 paces, of the river, and that the western face runs for some miles along the base of wooded heights rising immediately behind it, and is then continued for great distance upon low ground. having before it a deep canal, which also extends along its southern face, serving as a wet ditch to both. There a very large suburb on the low Ground, in front of the west and south faces, and at the south-east angle is the Tartar city, which Is a Separate fortress, divided from the Chinese town by high walls. The eastern face extends in an irregular line for many miles, running towards the south over a spur of Chung-san, a precipitous mountain overlooking! the whole country, the base of which commands the rampart.
Three Gates In this face are three gates; the most northerly (the Teshing) is appreachable by a paved road, running. between wooded hills to within 500} paces of the walls, whence]
carried along a cultivated fat: the next (the Taiping) is within a few hundred yards of the base of Chung-san: and that to the south (@he Chanyang) enters the Tertar city. There is a long line of unbroken Wali between the Teshing gate and the river, hardly approachable from swamps and low paddy (rice) land, fand the space between the Teshing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.