The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-03-24

the opium war ulu muCn Tor emma. 1t
opened this great port of Shanghai, gave
Great Britain the island of Hong Kong, and
showed the Chinese that the foreign devils
were stronger and mightier than them
selves. They paid the 81, 100000 which
represented the demands of the British,
and thereafter gave the foreigners the right
to trade and settle at Canton, Annoy Fuchau
and Shanghai. The United States soon
after this made her first treaty with China
which was made by Caleb Gushing in 1874,
and since that time foreign trade with
China has steadily increased. There are
now twenty-five open ports in the empire,
and the foreign trade amounts to more than
S273, 600, 000a year European and American
goods are now found in every province of
China, and our missionaries have pene-
trated to the widest regions of the Celes-
tai land. The growth of the foreign in
| huence and its effect upon China can no.
where be better seen than right here at
Shanghai. Here is the largest foreign
colony IN China, and there are from 5000 to
| 1000 Europeans who have their homes here
and VINO are engaged in business with the
Chinese. The foreign settlement of this
Paris of the Pacific looks more like slice
taken out of one of the rich cities of the
United States or of Europe, than a city in
Asia. The wide river front is lined with
big, three-story buildings, and a beautiful
public garden runs between these and the
are well paved, and you will meet as finely
dressed men and women upon them as you
will md in Washington or Paris. The
crowd IS, however, a much more coSmopoi-
tan one. The French and the English are
mixed with Americans and Germans, and
the servants of all are the yellow-faced
celestials. The policemen are East Indians,
TALL well formed, dark-faced, black bearded
men dressed in the uniform of our police,
save that they have red turbans a foot
high on their heads instead of helmet caps,
and they do not carry the ebony club They
are used chiefly in arresting the Chinese,
and foreigners have to be arrested by for
eigners. They are among the finest men |
have ever seen, and they contrast strikingly
with the delicate, slender, aristocratic-
iimbed Chinese
THE GRAND RIVER.
Shanghai is about midway on the Pacific
boundaries of China. 1t is near the mouth
of, though not on the great river, the Yang
tsekiang, which divides the empire into two
euual portions and which forms the great
central avenue of trade. This is one of the
greatest and one of the longest rivers of the
world and it Yies with the Nile in the rich
deposits which it carries down from the
mountains of Thibet, and speads over the
rich plains of China. Its waters where it
enters the sea are as yellow as clay and
their contents are, am told, as rich as
guanO. They form fertilizer which the
Chinese use by irrigation, so that it is
spread over much of the $4,000 square
miles which forms its basin and makes this
land produce from two to three crops per
year. The Yangtsekiang has fall nearly
double that Of the Nile or the Amazon. 1t
is so wide at its mouth that when we sailed
up it in coming to Shanghai we, for long
ways, were hardly able to see the banks,
and this width extends up the river for
hundreds of miles. 1t is navigable for
ocean steamers to HankOw, the city of the
size of Chicago, which is situated on its
banks 600 miles above Shanghai, and river
steamers can go 800 miles up its winding
course. Above this there are gOrges and
rapids which the foreigners now think can
be passed, and there will then be an open
ing into the interior of China by this means
for more than 1000 miles. The Yangtse-
kiang is so long that it would reach from
San Francisco to New York and push its
way out into the Atlantic if it could be
stretched out upon a plane of the face of
the United States. 1t is longer than the
distance from New York to Liverpool, and
it is said to be the best stream in the world
as to the arrangements of its branches.
It's boat population is numbered by hun
dreds of thousands, and it is city hundreds
of miles in length made up of iunks, ships
and barges. These Chinese junks are gorge
ously painted and carved. They have the
same style of sails and masts that we're used
thousands of years ago. and their sails are
immense sheets of cotton pat ;hed together
and stretched on rods Of bamboo which
look like fishing poles. The sailors are pig
tailed men in fat clothes of cotton, who sing
in a cracked gibberish as they work, and
who understand how to manage their rude
sails so well that they can often pass ships
of more modern make. All of the Chinese
boats have pair of eyes painted on the
sides of their prows, and the Chinese sailor
would no more think Of navigating without
these than he would think of eating with
out chopsticks. II asked the reason, he re-
| plies:
mo have eyes, no can see. No can see,
no can 60"
Bishop Fowler, while sailing up the Pie
Ho to Picking, happened to sit with his legs
! hanging over the boat so that they covered
up one eye. He noticed that the sailors
uneasy, and they at last came to him and
asked him to move his legs as the ship could
not see to go.
STRANGE SUPERSTITIONS.