OCR Text |
Show Jan-Held Coast of North China flow in Range of U. S. Bombers r-CW-3" xvxvVv ??54'?Kinhw.- .wJ-mhd fKV ANiGTJUNG- -X vJ, c Hong Kong o ,o .oo iso - BiMChnnl Miles 111 1 ' National Geographic Society Port Cities Famed in Tea and Silk Trade MustBeRecaptured By the National Geographic Society. The Chinese have a saying, "Everything "Ev-erything new originates in Canton." Bearing this out they point to the fact that the earliest Chinese trade with the Western world centered at Canton, and that Sun Yat Sen, who established the modern Chinese state, found his first followers there. This port, so important in the life of . China, marks the southern end of a vital 1,000-mile sweep of coast which extends northward to the Japanese-held Shanghai area. Along this coast, now feeling the blows of American bombs, Japanese control is only nominal except for the ports. One important port, Foo-chow Foo-chow (Minhow), remained In Chinese Chi-nese hands throughout the entire war until a recent sudden attack by Japanese forces. by eight and nine-story hotels, department de-partment stores and a modern cus-tomshouse. cus-tomshouse. Thousands of ramshackle buildings were razed to make way for 60 miles of paved streets. Roads into the interior were built. On either side of the mouth of Canton's Can-ton's estuary lie two foreign colonies colo-nies Portuguese Macau and British Hong Kong. Macau was the thin edge of the wedge which Europe thrust into China in the 16th century that later opened most of the important impor-tant ports of the empire to foreign trade. Little more than remembrance remem-brance of past glory remains to Macau. British Gain Monopoly. Hong Kong, Britain's great entrepot entre-pot across the bay, had nearly monopolized the foreign trade of all south China. It ranked as one of the world's principal ports, with a population of slightly over a million, 20,000 of whom were Caucasians. Northeast of Hong Kong is Bias bay, hangout of pirates. Though usually usu-ally attacking junks or small native ships, these bold corsairs sometimes bnnrHprt efpampr n3 nflimpTiffpri! overpowered the crews on the high seas, and took the ships to Bias bay for looting and for holding rich passengers pas-sengers for ransom. Swatow, Amoy, Chuanchow and Foochow are four important ports opposite Japanese - held Formosa (Taiwan). Swatow, near the mouth of the Han, was noted for its exports ex-ports of linen embroidery and laces. A city of 178,000, Swatow had no wharves, but unloaded its ships at mid-river pontoons which were bridged to the shore. As in most China ports, lighters also carried the cargo from large ships anchored in the harbor to the shore. Amoy supplied the tea for the Boston Bos-ton Tea Party. The British ships whose cargoes were dumped into Boston bay in 1773 carried tea from this faraway Chinese city. Amoy's prewar 234,000 persons had one ot$ China's most improved ports. Once dirty and backward, it built wide streets, an extensive Bund, and the finest park in south China. It lost its rich Formosa trade when Japan took that Chinese island in 1895. The harbor of Chuanchow (Tsin-kiang) (Tsin-kiang) admits only vessels of 10-foot draft or less, but Foochow has an anchorage for the largest vessels. A Chinese navy yard and dry docks were located there. In the 1850s, '60s and '70s Foochow was the most famous tea port in the world. British Brit-ish and American clippers loaded up with bohea tea and raced west. In the race of 1866 there was a difference dif-ference of only 12 minutes between the first and second ships to reach the finish line in the English channelafter chan-nelafter a voyage of 16,000 miles. Japanese penetration along sections sec-tions of this long coast is only skin deep, extending no farther inland than the waning power of the Nipponese Nip-ponese navy is felt. A few miles inland from the port garrisons the Chinese remain in control. Some sizable siz-able reaches of the. coast between major ports are likewise free of the invader. The shoreline from Canton to Shanghai forms a gentle outward curve with countless minor irregularities irregu-larities but no deep indentations except ex-cept the Canton estuary, Hangchow bay, and the mouth of the Yangtze. The coast is rugged, rocky and shattered shat-tered into thousands of islands. Typhoons Ty-phoons often rage along the entire coast except at Shanghai, making ships scurry to the nearest typhoon shelter. Gentler monsoons blow all year. Fishing is one of the chief occupations of the crowded, land-starved land-starved people. A bit of this coast is tropical, and much subtropical. Hong Kong lies on about the same latitude as Havana, Ha-vana, Cuba, and Shanghai is no " .farther north than Savannah, Ga. Orange groves, tea shrubs and rice paddies are seen in profusion as far north as Foochow. Rivers Carry All Traffic. Railroads are not as important in serving Chinese ports as are rivers. Many of the coast cities have no railroads. Each port lies at the mouth of a river. Nearly all traffic is borne to and from the ports on water, making them really transshipment trans-shipment points between river and canal craft and ocean-going vessels. Canton, about 90 miles from the open sea, is truly a city built on water trade. It is situated at the head of an estuary into which flow several rivers. Estimates place from 100,000 to 200,000 of its 860,000 inhabitants actually living on the water, in junks, on rafts, sampans and barges. In this floating city within a city a man could be born, grow up, marry, have children, and die, spending most of his life on the water. ; Canton saw the birth of the foreign for-eign trade and merchant marine of the United States. Six months after England recognized the Colonies' independence in-dependence the ship Empress of China was bound for Canton and tea. She also brought back china-ware china-ware and silk. Thus started the fabulous fab-ulous China trade, in which Yankee-built Yankee-built clipper ships outraced everything every-thing on the sea. Before the Japanese Japa-nese Invasion brought an interruption, interrup-tion, one-third of modern Canton's exports came to the United States, mostly as raw silk. Canton was feverishly improving itself when the Japs came. The Bund, formerly a muddy track along the river front, was transformed into a wide, well-paved street backed |