The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1Whymper, Frederick
History
The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1
Whymper, Frederick
Adventure and adventurers; Arctic regions; Ocean; Voyages around the world
afterwards the terms of peace were arranged. The loss of life in the
assault was not over 140 British and 30 French.
Shanghai is a port which has grown up almost entirely since 1844, the date
of its first occupation by foreigners for purposes of commerce. Then there
were only forty-four foreign merchant ships, twenty-three foreign
residents and families, one consular flag, and two Protestant
missionaries. Twelve years later, there were, for six months’ returns, 249
British ships, fifty-seven American, eleven Hamburg, eleven Dutch, nine
Swedish, seven Danish, six Spanish, and seven Portuguese, besides those of
other nationalities. The returns for the whole year embraced 434 ships of
all countries; tea exports, 76,711,659 pounds; silk, 55,537 bales.
Shanghai (“the Upper Sea”) has been written variously Canhay, Changhay,
Xanghay, Zonghae, Shanhae, Shanghay, and so forth. Its proper
pronunciation is as if the final syllable were “high,” not “hay.”
“Sailing towards the north of China,” says Milne, “keeping perhaps fifty
or sixty miles off the coast, as the ship enters the thirtieth parallel, a
stranger is startled some fine morning by coming on what looks like a
shoal—perhaps a sand-bank, a reef—he knows not what. It is an expanse of
coloured water, stretching out as far as the eye can reach, east, north,
and west, and entirely distinct from the deep-blue sea which hitherto the
vessel had been ploughing. Of course, he finds that it is the ‘Yellow
Sea;’ a sea so yellow, turbid, and thick, certainly, that you might think
all the pease-soup in creation, and a great deal more, had been emptied
into one monster cistern.” The name is therefore appropriate, as are the
designations of several others:
“The Yellow Sea, the Sea that’s Red,
The White, the Black, the one that’s Dead.”
Between the thirtieth degree of north latitude, where the group of the
Choosan Islands commences, and the thirty-seventh degree, this sea of
soup, this reservoir of tawny liquid, ranges, fed by three great rivers,
the Tseen-Tang, the Yangtsze-Kiang, and the Hwang-Ho, the greatest of
which is the second, and which contributes the larger part of the muddy
solution held in its waters. Forty-five miles from the _embouchure_ of the
Yangtsze-Kiang, you reach the Woosung anchorage, and a few miles further
the city of Shanghai, where the tributary you have been following divides
into the Woosung and Whampoa branches, at the fork of which the land ceded
to the British is situated. Here there is a splendid British consulate,
churches, mansions, and foreign mercantile houses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account