Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/286

 Most of my readers are aware that in spite of a host of troubles (not the least of which was the Taiping rebellion, or rather, I believe, the attack upon the city by the short-sword or dagger rebels) Shanghai has continued to advance steadily, and has always maintained its position as the greatest emporium of China. It must be at the same time borne in mind that this commercial success is, in some measure at least, attributable to the European customs' administration which was inaugurated at this city in 1843, and which now extends its ramifications to all the open ports of the Empire.

Some of my readers will naturally inquire whence the labour came which transformed this dismal swamp into what I have just described, and built houses there fit for any capital of Europe and superior to some of the edifices that adorn our own greatest ports. One might think that structures such as these must have been reared by skilled workmen from Europe ; but a very short residence in Shanghai suffices to undeceive us. Then we mark the avidity with which native builders, carpenters and mechanics of every sort compete with each other to win the remunerative employment which those buildings afford, and the facility with which they pick up the extended knowledge needful to enable them to carry out their contracts and to impart to their work that elegance and perfection which the cultivated tastes of the foreign architect demand. But it is not to these buildings alone that we must look to discover the hidden resources of Chinese toil. Visit the dockyards and foundries, and there too watch the Chinese craftsmen — the shipwrights, engineers, carpenters, painters and decorators, busily at work under European foremen, who bear the highest testimony to the capabilities of their men. Pass on next to the Kiang-nan arsenal, outside the city walls, and there you will find perhaps the highest