At the close of the last war with China in 1889, the Shamien (literally "mud flat") was ceded to the allied English and French Governments. A work of authority states: "Old China will doubtless remember 'the time when this 'Shamien', 'Sand Flat,' was typical of all that was filthy, unsavoury, and dissolute; when it was covered with decrepit sheds of wood and bark tottering over the stagnant grimy piles on the swamp, and with crowded hovels inhabited by lepers, mendicants, and thieves of the most miserable class. When this site was occupied by the Allies, the hovels which covered it were removed, and an artificial island was created by building (upon piles driven into the river bed) a massive embankment of granite." A canal over a hundred (100) feet in breadth was constructed between the harbour side and the neighbouring Chinese suburb; and the whole island is now covered with the handsome houses of the European Consuls and Merchants; and ornamented with broad and well-shaded roads and walks, and beautiful gardens, cricket-grounds &c. In short, the frontages on the Pearl River of European Settlement at Canton have been compared, in many of its features, to the Thames embankment in London.
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