Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/144

96 Treaty of Shimonoseki between Japan and China in April 1895, by which Ch'ung-k'ing was opened to "the trade, residence, industries, and manufactures of Japanese subjects (and by virtue of the most favoured nation clause to the subjects of other countries) under the same conditions and with the same privileges and facilities as exist at the present open cities, towns, and ports of China"; and steam navigation declared lawful upon the upper waters of the Yang-tsze.

This brief résumé of the steps leading up to the opening of the commercial gate of Western China is of value as an example of the prodigious expenditure of diplomatic energy required in China for so simple a matter as the opening of a port to trade. Let me now descend for a space from the task of chronicling these matters of high state, to the humbler duty of narrating the trivial details of my own progress.

The Chinese clerk who had been entrusted with the duty of drawing up the necessary papers for myself and my companion at Ichang had not found leisure during his short but busy