Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/824

816 especially since if has been kept clean by the Municipal Council, and (to quote Sir Patrick Manson again) "a little languor by the end of summer, becoming more pronounced as a rule the longer one stays here, is perhaps the only climatic disease a sensible man need suffer from." But Amoy City is a hotbed of every form of disease, among which plague and cholera are prominent. The causes are the filthy state of the town, and the fact that the civilisation of the people has not advanced to the point at which the advantages of hygiene is realised.

HISTORY.

The name Amoy is derived from the Chinese name of the island as pronounced in the Changchow dialect, but by the local Chinese it is called E-mng. The "mandarin" pronunciation of the name is Hsia-men. The modern name seems to have been given during the Ming period, but to have come into regular use only since the subjugation of the island by the present hending the estuary of the Changchow River, we have the seat of a very ancient trade with foreign countries. "Amoy must be taken as the successor and representative of the mediaeval port of Zaitun, concerning which Yule gives this note : — ' Zayton, Zaitun, Zeithun, Caylon, the great port of Chinese trade with the West in the Middle Ages, that from which Polo sailed on his memor- able voyage, that at which Ibn Batuta landed, and from which Marignolli sailed for India, is mentioned by nearly all the authors who speak of China up to the fourteenth century inclusive. A veil falls between China and Europe on the expulsion of the Mongols, and when it rises in the sixteenth century, Zaytun has disappeared.' "' Zaitun had indeed disappeared ; and so completely, that a controversy has raged over the identification of the site. Into the details of this it is needless to enter, for the weight of evidence — to the mind of the present writer at least — sustains the plea advocated stoutly by the late Mr. George THE ANOLO-CHINESE COLLEGE. dynasty. Chia-ho-listi (locally, Kaho-su), which means " the island of good crops," was the name by which the island uas first known to history. The fanciful nature of this appel- lation (like that of Kulangsu, the Chinese characters denoting which mean " drum- wave island ") leads one to surmise that it is only the Chinese adaptation of the name of the island in some lost pre-Chinese langu- age. During the Ming period Amoy was called by the military title of Chung-tso-so, the " middle left place." Koxinga gave a name of his own devising, Ssu-ming-chou, or the " island mindful of the Ming." Amoy is also known in the literary language as Lu-chiang or Lu-hsii, the "egret river" or '■ egret island," so called from the number of egrets or paddy-birds which frequent it. So far as the present city of Amoy is con- cerned, its rise to commercial importance is of comparatively recent date, and may be said to be coincident with the establishment of the modern foreign trade. But, taking Amoy Harbour in its larger sense as compre- Phillips for many years : that the modern district city of Haiteng — situated at the en- trance to the Changchow River, formerly called Geh Kong and the port to the city of Changchow until supplanted by Amoy — occupies the site of the port of the famous medieval town.t " After the expulsion of the Mongols from China, foreign commerce still flourished at this Fuhkien port, and it was at its zenith about the middle of the fifteenth century, which it maintained till t There is no doubt that Marco Polo's Zaitun was to all intents one of the places immediately north or south of Amoy, and it almost certainly included, in a trader's sense, both Changchow and Chinchew. These are still the great emigration and trade ports for the Southern Ocean and both of them lie near the European "open port " in Amoy Hay, Learned men have long disputed what "Zaitun" specifically means, but I think it almost certainly stands for the coast town of Haiteng. which, though not made an "official " city until 1564, nuist have long borne that name. — "China; Her History, Dip- lomacy, and Commerce." E. H. Parker p. 71. , when, owing to Japanese raids, it gradually declined."* In the day's of Zaitun's greatness Amoy was only one of Marco Polo's " Isles of the ocean." It was sparsely populated, and the prey of the native pirate and the Japanese sea-rover. Its birth as a place of commercial importance may be said to be coincident with the arrival of the foreign vessels early in the seventeenth century, the establishment of the Dutch tr>iding posts in Formosa, and the consolidation of the Koxinga power. In the throes with which the mainland was con- vulsed during the expiring years of the Ming, foreign trade naturally found that it could best be carried on in the port governed by the strong hands of the Koxinga family ; the Zaitun, or Hai-ting trade, which had long been waning, shifted here ; the easy approach and the natural advantages of the harbour soon won appreciation, and here the trade has remained. Foreign trade under the new conditions was ushered in by the Portuguese, who put in an appearance here not long after their tirst arrival in Canton in 1516. The Ch;mg- chow and Ch'iianchow-fu merchants seem to have been eager to trade, and intercourse was carried on at the island of Go-sii, outside Tsingseu, at the entrance to Amoy Harbour. Hut the ollicial mind w,is strongly set against it, and in 1547 it is recorded th,it some ninety Chinese merchants were beheaded for the offence of trading with foreigners. Com- merce, however, no doubt went on clandes- tinely. After the Portuguese came the Spaniards, who in 1575 sent a mission from Manila to Foochow with a view of obtaining per- mission to trade from the Viceroy. In this they were unsuccessful, but a steady trade was established by junk between Amoy and Manila. " This important trade employed thirty to forty Chinese junks running con- stantly between Amoy and Manila. Silk, porcelain, and other products weie carried, amounting to a million and a half dollars in gold annually. At that period there were more than fourteen thousand Spanish in Mexico who were dependent upon the raw silk of China to weave the celebrated fabrics so much in vogue at that time. The Spanish vessels carried this merchandise from Manila to Mexico. So extensive was the intercourse with China that twenty thousand Chinese had located in Manila."t The Spaniards on their journey to Foochow anchored at Amoy, which they called Tan-su-so, the local pro- nunciation of Chung-tso-so, the name of the island during the Ming dynasty. "This Tan-su-so is a gallant and freshe towne, of forre thousand householders, and hath con- tinually a thousand souldiers in garrison and compassed about with a great and strong wall ; and the gates fortified with plates of yron ; the foundations of all the houses are of lime and stone, and the walls of lime and yearth and .some of brick ; their houses within very fairely wrought, with great courts, their streetes faire and brode all paved."| The law at this time against a Chinese leaving his country, and against the admission of foreigners into China, was very strict, and when the Dutch first arrived in these waters, in 1604, they found great difliculties to con- tend with. So hostile were the Chinese measures that the Dutch admiral, Wybrand van Warwyk, was compelled to leave the Pescadores. The Dutch attention was turned • Phillips' " Two Medixval Fuhkien Trading Ports," p. 5. t Davidson : " Island of Formosa," p. 12, Note. J " Mendoza," Vol. 11. p. 41.
 * •' Catliay and the Way Thither." Vol. I. p, 108.