Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/732

 TIENTSIN.

TIENTSIN is second in importance only to Shanghai among the Treaty ports of China. Situated some 30 miles up the Pei-ho River, it was probably a sea-coast village two thousand years ago. The alteration in its geographical position has been brought about, in the course of many centuries, by the unwearying activity of natural forces, but the metamorphosis in its commercial prospects has been effected in comparatively few years. Till the end of the Ming dynasty. 1644 A.u., Tientsin was only a second-rate military station. At the opening of the eighteenth century a rapid transformation had taken place, and it was then, as now, a great distributing centre. During recent years its progress has been more remarkable than that of any city within the confines of the Empire. Lying at the junction of the Grand Canal with the Pei-ho, Tientsin is distant some 80 miles from Peking. The country is flat and uninteresting, and practically the whole of the city is built on raised land. The many waterways with which it is surrounded are, for the most part, of a dirty yellow appearance, and certainly do not add to the attractiveness of the district, but their importance as a means of communication, and the influence they have had on the trade of the port, cannot be over-estimated. The climate is one of extremes. The thermometer ranges from zero in the winter, when all the rivers in North China are frozen to a depth of a foot or more, and the port is closed for a period of three or four months, to 105 and 1 10 degrees in June and July. A short rainy season extending from the middle of July to the end of August reduces the excessive heat, but, unfortunately, brings with it the necessity for mosquito-nets ; and dust- storms rage frequently in the spring and autumn. The long bright winter days, however, add a zest to life, and quickly cause the disadvantages of the summer and rainy seasons to be forgotten.

The native population of Tientsin — or Heaven's Ford, according to the English translation — is reputed to tie 1,000,000, but there are no reliable statistics upon which an estimate can be based, for the census taken by the police in 1904 was entirely unsatisfactory. The natives formerly earned the unenviable distinction of being the most violent, as well as the most hostile to the foreigner, of any in the Empire. " Ten oily-mouthed Pekingese cannot get ahead of one tonguey Tientsinese," is a well-known Chinese comment upon the character of the inhabitants of a city which has been the scene of one massacre and two military campaigns in the last half century.

Happily there has been a marked improvement in recent years, the continuity of policy adopted by a succession of strong, able rulers and the steady work of the missions having borne good fruit. During His Excellency Li Hung Chang's long rule, the trade and importance of the city developed onsiderably, and the rowdyism of the inhabitants was repressed by the vigour of the Government, until the Boxer eruption in the last years of Li Hung Chang's life. The Viceroy made Tientsin his chief place of residence and the centre of his experiments in military and naval education, with the result that it came to be regarded as the focus of the new learning and of national reform. His Excellency's successor, Yuan Shih Khan, won the universal respect of the foreign community by his liberal policy and humane government, as well as by his constant endeavours to create a better understanding between the nationalities.

GORDON HALL, TIENTSIN.

The original city is small, being only a mile long and three-quarters of a mile wide, but its suburbs are many and populous. Formerly it was surrounded by a high brick wall, but this was entirely demolished and replaced by line open boulevards in lyoi by order of the Foreign Military Provisional Government. The foreign residents, whose advent has made Tientsin what it is, used