Directory_and_Chronicle_1906

791

CHUNGKING

to March. Spring and autumn can indeed hardly be said to exist. The ordinary rise of the river is about 75 feet; in 1892 it rose 965 feet, and on 6th August 1898 to 101 feet, on 2nd August, 1903, it rose to 93 feet the water not being able to force its way fast enough through the gorges. On the 11th August 1905 the river rose to 180 feet. According to a Chinese report the river rose 120 feet in 1878. An extraord- inary landslip occurred in September, 1896, some distance below Chungking, which forms a dangerous rapid and greatly interferes with traffic on the river. Operations are now in progress for the removal of the obstruction. On the left bank of the Kialing and facing Chungking, extending below the junction of the two rivers, is the walled city of Kiang-Peh-ting, formerly within the district of Li Min Fu, but now incorporated in Chungking Fu. These two cities and the large villages in their immediate neighbourhood are estimated to contain a population of about 300,000.

The port was declared open to Foreign trade in March, 1891, but business did not actually commence until the 18th June, since which date a large trade has been done both in imports and exports, carried in foreign chartered junks. The net value of the trade in 1904 was Tls. 29,406,427; in 1903 Tls. 29,222,120; in 1902 Tls. 24,679,739; Tls. 24,268,728 in 1901, and Tls. 24,452,066 in 1900. Rebellious disturbances in recent years. have adversely affected trade, but in 1903 the province enjoyed immunity in this respect and in consequence trade improved. A rising started in 1904 by a man who said be was commissioned by Heaven to wipe out the missionaries was ruthlessly suppressed. One church was burned, and a few converts killed, and then the Chinese officials caused shell to be fired into the mob until all (several hundred) were killed!

The Yangtsze is navigable for steamers from Ichang, not only to Chungking, but as far as Sui-fu, where the Min river joins the Yangtsze, but before the Japanese war, steamers were not allowed to ascend above Ichang. By the Japanese Treaty of 1894, however, the right of steam navigation to Chungking was secured, and in the spring of 1898 the voyage was successfully accomplished by Mr. A. Little with the sinall steamer Leechuen, which, however, being of limited power, had to be tracked up the rapids in the same way as junks. On 6th May, 1900, the two light-draught British gunboats Woodcock and Woodlark arrived from Ichang, having left that port on 5th April. The return journey occupied 25 steaming hours. On 12th June, the Yangtsze Trading Company's steamer, the Pioneer, comnienced her maiden voyagé and arrived at Chungking on 20th June. This steamer was afterwards purchased by the British Government. Several steamers have since been built for the Upper Yangtsze, and in December the German steamer Suihsiang was wrecked on her first voyage sixty miles above Ichang. The Commissioner of Customs in his report for 1901 wrote "The navigation of the Yangtsze between Ichang and Wan-hsien for merchant steamers is unanimously considered insuperable by all those with whom I have discussed the subject, whose practical knowledge of the river entitles them to be named authorities. The difficulties and obstructions to be overcome, the delays at the different rapids, and consequent expense to the ship, are of such a nature as to preclude all hopes of profit, although the actual feasibility of getting to Chungking. by steam has already been demonstrated by the S.S. Pioneer and by gunboats."

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