Sailors don't care, They never did and as long as the tradition con tinues they never will. Their job is to run ships, whether they are fishing smacks or Queen Marys. They take their ships into port, develop communications, build up trade and open up countries, known, or unknown, and then fade away. They leave behind them splendid memorials in the shape of huge ports, imposing trade statistics, advancement of prosperity and human happiness through developed international relationships and a few moulder-ing, half-forgotten cemeteries, like the' seamen's cemetery at Pootung, where personalities are lost and dim inscriptions tell a tale only to the curious, It is on such a basis that the history of the Port of Shanghai can be told and some fragments of the early days of shipping reconstructed as the humble background of the maritime greatness of this elly which ranks high among the ports of the wor Forty years ago (1896) the contrast between the dawn of Shanghai and the then existing development was so startling as to evoke comment. Fifty years previously (1846) when Shanghai was opened the picture was startling. A contemporary description of what since has grown to be fifth port in the world provides the following There was then cither foreign selliement nor shipping. The frontage of what is now the French Concession was covered with Chinese buildings and pending the erection of European houses all foreigners resided and transacted business there. Below the Yang-Kingpeng (now Avenue Edward VID was open country dotted with copses of bamboo, farmhouses and grave mounds.. The bank of the river, surmounted by a tow-path, extended along the centre of what now the Bund, and continuing, along Broudway very nearly to Hongkew Church it curved outward to a rounded point a tible above the Old Dock. On the Pooluny side was several hundred fect. back of its present position; the Soochow Crock was a good-sized river; and the "chow chow" water was most violent opposite to a ditch bordered With willow. trees where now is Nanking Road.
This was in 1845 when there was a big Meet of junks constantly Blocking the river and the few foreign ships which began to' call fat Shanghai had a dificult task finding a channel through the dense Chinese shipping. It was a common practice of foreign ships leaving oF entering port "to drop with the tide, having an achor under foot and' a royal yard in the water astern with sail bent and its foot weighted, which manipulated by ropes from each quarter as oceaston required, guided the vessel in its sintious course."
One of the first, if not the first. merchantman to enter Shanghai was the Ameri ship Panama, which arrived company with a Fr an English war sloop. was a Jarge ship for that time, of 612 tons register, and must have astonished the Chinese. She was the advance guard of many other ships of several Even in the early days, from a marine point of view Shanghai was very progressive. Within a few year's of the introduction of steam the P. & O. steamer Lady Mary Wood, a paddle ship of 553 fons and 250 horse power, was plying between Hongkong and Shanghai. This was in April, 1950 and she concentrated on carrying only passengers, mails, treasure, opium and silk. For nine months she was, in service, covering the distance between the two ports in seven or eight days and delivering London mails in Shanghai in 51 to 66 days.
She was a losing proposition and as the Shanghai comm afterwards to do wonderful work for the Chinese Government as an anti-piracy cruiser, arrived from New York for Messrs Russell and Company, which later was absorbed into the China Merchants.
A trip from Woosung up the river to Shanghai, which has been converted by the ferry service into cool and pleasant recreation these summer nights, was an adventure in the early days of the port, and more especially so to the newcomer, to whom Shanghai was dark and dangerous place and China a land lost in a haze, of mystery. Etched jin a youthful imagination and repeated many years later is this picture of a pioneer's arrival on August 16, 1861, and his discovery of a problem which gave rise to the creation of the Whangpoo Conservancy Board and has tested the Board's engineering skill since it was created:
We picked up a pilot off the Saddles, and ran up to Woosung in the swift tea clipper Solent, before 'a strong south-cast summer' breeze; there we were met by Shang-hal's old friend, the "Heaven Sent Barrier." We could not cross the bar and so we had lost an exciting race with the clipper Julia, We! had parted company with her in the Downs; we sighted and hailed our rival in the China Sea near Borneo, she passing us ay we lay fat anchor, and then with lighter raught she passed the bar and got Into harbour before us, The next day with a blazing sun we took passage In a pilot boat for Shang-hal, 'There was no Woosung Mail then and no steam launches were running. We landed at 6 pin. on mud fiat, passing through a wonderful forest of masts, 400 sail atleest and with one' or two steamers at the outside amongst them, 'There was no Public Garden, 'That pleasant. fragrant, flowery' spot was partly under water, a Chinese junk anchorage.
But this hardy pioneer had not reached his final destination. He had to go farther to Ningpo and after a four month's trip from England the prospects of the last stage of the journey were none too pleasant, In these days of luxurious travel along the China coast in vessels {wo or three times the size of the biggest ocean-going vessels of those days and conveniences which relegate the carlier ships almost into the coracle class of shipbuilding, arrangements on the Ningpo run should make one shudder. To continue those early days the connection between Shanghai and the out-pons was precarious and uncertain. There was a small and cranky sloomer the Rose running between Shanghai and Ningpo. She started professedly once a fortnight and then only wind and weather por-milling, The fast sailing Ningpo lorchas did most of the carrying and passenger trade and as we just missed the first trip of the Rose, and rather shrank from a lorcha. after 11 days. of tossing in the Solent, our kind friends, Mr, and Mrs, H......persuaded Us to wait fortnight for the Hext attempt of the leisurely Rose.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.