Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/384

376 immediate vicinity are the Consulates of America, Austria-Hungary, and Japan.

From the Garden Bridge the tramway line runs by way of Seward Road and Yangtszepoo Road to within a short distance of the Point, where one of the most picturesque riverside views in Shanghai can be obtained. For the first part of the journey Chinese and Japanese stores line the route, but further along, as the open country is approached, the great cotton mills and silk filatures begin to appear. On the way the reservoirs of the Water Company are passed. Their situation below the city has been determined by the fact that the best water is not that which flows down the Whangpoo, but that which is forced up from the Yangtsze-Kiang by the incoming tide. The Yangtszepoo Road, which has a total length of about five miles, is eventually to be continued to Woosung. The return to Shanghai is made in the tramcar, viá the Broadway. From this thoroughfare, which runs parallel to Seward Road, access may be had to the many busy wharves which line the river bank.

From the Bund eight roads strike inland to the Defence Creek, which, as it connected the Soochow Creek and the Yang-king-pang and with them enclosed an island, was soon selected as the western boundary of the old British Settlement. Of these eight roads by far the most important is Nanking Road, or the Maloo, as it is often called by old residents. Starting from a point opposite the memorial to Sir Harry Parkes, it is exactly a mile long, and forms the main artery of traffic in Shanghai. At all hours of the day it is thronged, and at five o'clock in the evening a continuous stream of carriages pours along it on the way to the rural districts that lie beyond. For nearly three-fourths of its length Nanking Road follows a straight line, and is a fine wide thoroughfare. The bends which occur in it during the first two or three hundred yards are due to the fact that it originally followed the winding course of a creek which ran from the Yang-king-pang to the Whangpoo along what is now Kiangse Road. The narrowness which still characterises this early section is a legacy left by the Committee of Roads and Jetties, who rejected as extravagant the suggestion which Captain Balfour made in his capacity as Consul that roads should not be less than 25 feet in width. Just recently this narrowness has been more acutely felt owing to the introduction of a double line of tramways, which at some points leaves a space between the track and the pavement insufficient even for a rickshaw to pass. It is in this congested locality that the principal foreign stores are found. Thence onward the road is lined on both sides with Chinese shops, easily distinguished by their open unglazed fronts and their hanging signs resplendent with gilt. In not a few instances they exemplify the Chinese style of architecture. They rarely exceed two storeys in height, and in their construction a building line has been carefully observed. Shortly before the Defence Creek is reached a block standing on the left-hand side of the road between the Kwangse and Yunnan Roads arrests attention by its prominence. This is the Town Hall which, with the market attached to it, covers an area of some 43,000 square feet. It was built in 1896, and is of red brick with Ningpo stone dressings. Heavy gables are a feature of the front elevation. Approached by a handsome double stone staircase is a lofty and well-lighted hall measuring 154 feet by 80 feet, which was intended to serve primarily as a drill hall for the volunteers, but is now so often in demand for public gatherings that the volunteers have asked to be provided with other accommodation. Across the road is the Louza Police Station, an imposing building with pointed arches surmounted by a central tower.

Foochow Road, which also runs east and west, is the principal Chinese thoroughfare. In it are to be seen the large and fashionable opium shops, tea-houses, and restaurants, while adjacent to it are the Chinese theatres, in which historical plays are presented that sometimes extend over several weeks. Although costly and elaborate costumes are worn by the actors, scenery and various other adventitious aids to realism, to which the Western mind has become accustomed, are here unknown; consequently, much has to be taken for granted. A chair, for instance, has sometimes to be accepted for a wall, and an actor who goes through the movements of riding must be assumed to be mounted on a high-spirited horse. It is, perhaps, because of the strain which this involves upon the imagination that hot damp cloths for mopping the brow are handed round among the occupants of the more expensive seats. The Chinese General Hospital, which was founded by Dr. Lockhart in 1846, and transferred to the community in 1872, also lies along Foochow Road. This hospital was the first medical mission in China, just as the London Mission, which shares the same compound, was the first