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Show :::: ' : : ........ .. . " '. - j - - Crowded Shipping on the Min River at Foochow. (Prepared by the National Geographic Society. Washineton. D. C.) FOOCHOW, which once ranked among the tea ports of the world and then, two decades ago, bowed to Ceylon and Japan, is staging a comeback. The steep slopes of Fukien province, of which Foochow is capital and leading city, again are covered with thriving tea bushes; big-hatted men, women and children throng the plantations, picking tea leaves from dawn to dusk ; tea-laden porters form an almost endless parade from the plantation to the tea warehouses, and boats on the Min piled with packages J of tea recall the days when Yankee clipper ships cleared Foochow with cargoes of fragrant leaves, destined to American teapots. Foochow port is really not in the -i city's suburbs. The nearest gate in the city's five-mile, vine-clad wall is more than three miles from the north bank of the Min, about 34 miles from-the from-the sea. Few travelers visit Foochow. To reach the port, one must go by boat, for railroads and good roads are not to be found in this region. Oceangoing Ocean-going vessels from Shanghai and Hong Kong make regular trips up the Min which penetrates the Chinese coast opposite the north end of Taiwan (Formosa). The vessels may steam up the river as far as Pagoda Anchorage. Anchor-age. There passengers are transferred trans-ferred to launches which, after nine miles of dodging matting-covered sampans sam-pans and grotesquely carved, bigh-pooped bigh-pooped Junks, deposit their human cargo at the city's suburban docks. If one wants to "go native," however, he may board a native boat with the owners' own-ers' family, fowls, dogs and pigs and travel in the unwesternized atmos-' atmos-' phere of the Min. The river's obstruction at Pagoda Anchorage Is artificial, formed when stone-laden barges were sunk there to prevent a French fleet from reaching reach-ing the city during the Franco-Foo-chow troubles in 1S84. It is the characteristic char-acteristic of the Chinese love for things as they are that Foochow business busi-ness men have waited so long to take steps to clear the channel and thus avoid the endless annoyance of re-4 re-4 loading of cargoes. From River to City. The Journey from the river to the v city may be made by bus, jinrikisha or sedan chair. Frequently travelers prefer to be landed on the south side of the river where they get a glimpse of the most modern portion of Foochow Foo-chow the foreign settlement. On a small hill are foreign consulates, western churches, hospitals and handsome hand-some residences which constitute a community almost independent of the Chinese city, while below is a business busi-ness district with streets lined with foreign and native-owned shops where eastern and western merchandise is on display. Commodious clubs, wide sweeps of grassy lawns doited with flowering gardens, a race track, tennis courts and pleasure craft on the Min tend to keep the small foreign population popula-tion contented. The visitor should not hurry Inlo Foochow proper, even if he could, for to do so would be to miss the physical beauties and fabled history that accentuate ac-centuate each step of the journey from the ocean to t he port. Along the Min one may see pearl divers. Should a diver be drowned his fellows stoically conclude that he has fallen a victim to the sea-turtle, Chinese equivalent equiv-alent for the legendary sea-serpent of tlo West. Jsear Pagoda Anchorage rises Sharp peak, capped by a tower built by a wife to welcome home an oriental Knock Arden who, when lie saw It, thought he had mistaken the river, and sailed away again, never to return. A mandarin's footprint In a rook commemorates com-memorates the summary punishment of quarrymcn who kept right on chopping chop-ping away Its companion footprint, de- spite the (low of blood that spurted out at each stroke. When removed to a place in a bridge it registered a protest by kicking its bearers into the river, so the companion was not molested. mo-lested. fp Inside the Foochow wall a few mod ern schools and government buildings have punctuated an otherwise low. flat sky line of rather dingy buildings. Telegraph keys click in telegraph of- flees, electric lights are available to those who can afford them, a few automobiles au-tomobiles may be seen on the main streets, and western fashions vie with those of the Orient. But if the traveler steps into a Foochow Foo-chow side street, he steps into an era several centuries past. Streets that (wist and turn and come to abrupt , stops were marked features of Foo-chow's Foo-chow's early city planners. For example, ex-ample, the tortuous route of one street might be visualized by drawing a diagram. dia-gram. It begins by running eastward and then northward, east-ward, northward, north-ward, eastward, northward, eastward, southward, westward, southward, southeastward, southward, westward, southward, eastward and southward. Travelers Use Sedan Chairs. The whole course of this thoroughfare thorough-fare is equal to but a few American city blocks in length and nowhere Is it wide enough for even a jinrikisha to pass without driving playing children chil-dren and their playmates filthy dogs and pigs into bordering doorways. The sedan chair is used by most travelers trav-elers to penetrate the Foochow passageways pas-sageways where the odors permeating the atmosphere are so overwhelming to foreign nostrils that chair bearers are urged on to the nearest breathing spaces. Ancient as Foochow seems to be to the westerner, it is a sort of wild west of China to the natives of Canton and Peiping. In the days of Confucius all China looked upon the region that now Is Fukien province as the bailiwick of barbarians. The wall that encompasses the city did not rise until the Ming period which covered the years that America was discovered and colonized. colon-ized. While poor transportation facilities for reaching Foochow have constituted an important factor in keeping the city truly oriental, cholera and the bubonic plague have also caused outsiders to give It a wide berth. Perhaps the pleasantest portion of a Foochow tour is a visit to the tea factories and warehouses where tea leaves, scented with Jasmines, roses and chrysanthemums are sorted from dawn to dusk by Chinese women and children. Last year iVoochow exported export-ed more than 7,000,000 pounds of Fukien Fu-kien tea and re-exported an additional 0,000,000 pounds which were shipped to Its "tea perfumeries." There are more than forty tea factories in the city. The open shops along the Foochow streets reveal thousands of natives eking out an existence in various industries. in-dustries. Before one's eyes artisans make wooden pillows and images of gods and odd-looking beasts; cabinet makers turn out fancy furniture; potters pot-ters shape and fire handsome vessels; brick makers fashion their products in all shapes, sizes and colors; both men and women sit silently embroidering, embroider-ing, or weaving the dark cloth usually worn by peasants; and dyers, with inky hands, seemingly turn old garments gar-ments into new of a different color. Trade with 27 cities and many small villages above Foochow which are reached by river boats accounts for much of Foochow's commercial activity. activ-ity. It was not until 1S01 when the Min was opened to foregn shipping that the city's "suburbs" spread out along the Min banks and Foochow merchants beckoned to world trade. Since then Foochow's annual output of tea alone once reached nearly 100,-000.000 100,-000.000 pounds and it bids fair to repeat. re-peat. The Dog Worshipers. On a mountain not far from the city one encounters the dog worshipers easily distinguishable by the peculiar coiffure of their women; a scaffoldlike scaffold-like effect with a cord dangling before the face. This is worn because of a myth which holds that a dog once saved the city and the gods rewarded him by subjecting him to a process by which he was to become human after his incarceration for seven times forty for-ty days. An impatient provincial Pandora Pan-dora lifted the cover when all but his head had been transformed and thus left a dog-headed mtvg. In going to claim his bride his face w..s covered so his canine features might not offend iter. So, to til i s day, the wonien of the mountain wear the headdress Ln honor of him and. on Xew Year's day, they worship the image of a dog. Near the city is Poctrine hill, which derives this one of its many names from the residence there of a certain learned man who accumulated a library li-brary a fvlO-voIume sheif known as the "Doctriue of the Universe.'' |