Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/86

78 forming of bases by other nations from which to push their trade. Chinese soil is now held, through some excuse and under various conditions, by Portugal, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Japan. In addition to this Italy has made an unsuccessful attempt to secure a foothold at San Mun Bay.

The Portugese possession is Macao, situated on the western side of the mouth of the Canton River, a charming settlement covering the city and a few square miles of territory separated from the main land by a narrow neck. It is a delightful little piece of southern European refinement in an Oriental setting, and perhaps the only point on the coast to which the word charming can be rightly applied. It was the first foreign settlement in China, being ceded to Portugal in 1557 in return for services in putting down pirates. On account of the shallowness of the harbor, the importance of Macao as a trading point or military base is very small.

The British possessions are Hong Kong, Kow-loon and Wei-hai-wei. As a result of the Opium War of 1841, the island of Hong Kong, whose greatest dimension is but nine miles, and wholly mountainous, located at the eastern side of the Canton estuary, directly opposite to Macao, but distant therefrom about forty miles, was given over by China as a part of the indemnity. In 1860 there was added the shore of the main land, called Kow-loon, across the roadstead whose width is rather more than a mile, in order to complete the harbor. On this island the English have established a colony, built the city of Victoria, and through the magnificent land-locked harbor, have developed a trading point, whose commerce ranks with that of the world's greatest ports. There are no customs dues, no restricting conditions—all nations and nationalities have an equal footing, so that Hong Kong has become the great entrepôt or warehouse for nearly the whole of the Orient, and absolutely so for Southern China, whose gateway it controls. A year's record shows that over 11,000 vessels enter and clear, not including upwards of 70,000 junks. Thus have the English converted an apparently useless island into a most valuable possession for themselves and a great stepping-stone for the world's commerce.

The next country to establish a foothold on Chinese soil was France, who acquired from Annam, by war and treaty, between the years 1860 and 1874, part of the province of Tong-king. In 1882 further trouble arising between France and Annam, the latter appealed to her protector, China, and war ensued. The result was the permanent occupation of the whole of Tong-king and the placing of the French frontier next to that of China.

At the conclusion of the Japanese war, the island of Formosa was permanently ceded by China and an arrangement made for the temporary occupation of Port Arthur. Then Russia interfered, insisted on