Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/449

442 vessels which crowd the river, the houses of the foreigners, their horses and their dogs, are all objects of wonder, even more so than the foreigners themselves. Mr. Beale, who iins one of the finest houses here, has frequent applications from respectable Chinese who are anxious to see the inside of an English dwelling. These applications are always complied with in the kindest manner, and the visitors depart highly delighted with the view. It is to be hoped that these peeps at our comforts and refinements may have a tendency to raise the "barbarian race" a step or two higher in the eyes of the "enlightened” Chinese.

A pretty English church forms one of the ornaments of the new town, and a small cemetery has been purchased from the Chinese; it is walled round, and has a little chapel in the centre. In the course of time we may perhaps take a lesson from the Chinese, and render this place a more pleasing object than it is at present. Were it properly laid out with good walks, and planted with weeping-willows, cypresses, pines, and other trees of an ornamental and appropriate kind, it would tend to raise us in the eyes of a people who, of all nations, are most particular in their attention to the graves of the dead.

The gardens of the foreign residents in Shanghae arc not unworthy of notice; they far excel those of the Chinese, both in the numbcr of trees and shrubs which they contain, and also in the neat and tasteful manner in which they are laid out and arranged.

The selection of ports, after the treaty of Nanking, was made (with the exception of Canton) under the obvious disadvantage of a very imperfect topographical knowledge of the country. Ningpo and Amoy were named in the instructions from home, as having been formerly ports of European trade; but Shanghae and Foochow-foo wore entirely new. The last has proved a decided failure, after more than seven years' trial. It is situated on the Min, a kind of Chinese Rhine, crowded with rocks and shoals; and the city cannot be approached by vessels of any size within eight miles. The disposition of the people is also exceedingly unfriendly, and at the time of Sir John Davis's official visit, the consul was consigned to a very miserable dwelling in the suburb, on the side of the river opposite to the city. Since then, the capital of Fokien and Ningpo have been reduced to vice-consulates, merely aided by interpreters. Mr. Fortune visited also the Fokien capital, and extended his explorations, notwithstanding the jealousy of the inhabitants, up the river Min; first visiting a celebrated Buddhist temple, which, he says, seems to be the Jerusalem! of that part of China, to whose relics, consisting of what appears to be an elephant's or mammoth's tooth, and which is revered as one of Buddha's gigantic masticators, and a mysterious crystal vase, he assigns the importance of commemorative engravings; and next a spring, famous for the excellency of its water, and situated in what he describes as one of the most romantic-looking dells or ravines that he ever beheld. Chinese like, a caldron of this excellent water is kept always boiling, in order that tea may be readily made for visitors. The view from the fir and azalia-clad mountains on the Min is described as being peculiarly picturesque.

The view which I now obtained was one of the grandest I had seen for many a day. Above me, towering in majestic grandeur, was the celebrated peak of Koo-shan, 1000 feet higher than where I stood. Below, I looked down upon rugged and rocky ravines, in many places barren, and in others clothed with trees and brushwood, but perfectly wild. To afford, as it were, a striking contrast to this scenery, my eye next rested on the beautiful valley of the Min, in which the town of Foo-chow-foo stands. The river was winding through it, and had its surface studded with boats and junks sailing to and