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HANKOW.
Hankow is situated on the river Han at the point where it enters the Yangtsze, and is in lat. 30 deg. 32 min. 51 sec. N., and long. 114 deg. 19 min. 55 sec. E. The natives look upon Hankow as only a suburb of Hanyang, which it immediately adjoins, and which is a district city of the province of Hupeh. These two towns lie immediately facing the city of Wuchang-fu, the capital of the province, which is built upon the south bank of the Yangtsze. Hankow is distant from Shanghai about 600 miles.
Lord Elgin visited Hankow in 1858, and must have been one of the first foreigners who ever entered this important inland city. Attention was first drawn to it as a place of trade by Huc, a French missionary, whose writings on China are less popular now than they used to be, but it is generally believed that this reverend father had never been within many miles of the place, and had drawn largely on his fertile imagination for his details. The port was opened to foreign trade in 1861.
Captain Blakiston, in his work "The Yangtsze," gives the following description If the place and its surroundings:-"Hankow is situated just where an irregular oange of semi-detached low hills crosses a particularly level country on both sides of the main river in an east and west direction. Stationed on Pagoda Hill, a spectator fooks down on almost as much water as land even when the rivers are low. At his leet sweeps the magnificent Yangtsze, nearly a mile in width; from the west and skirting the northern edge of the range of hills already mentioned, comes the river Han, narrow and canal like, to add its quota, and serving as one of the highways of the country; and to the north-west and north is an extensive treeless flat, so little elevated above the river that the scattered hamlets which dot its surface are without exception raised on mounds, probably artificial works of a now distant age. A stream or two traverse its farther part and flow into the main river. Carrying his eye to the right bank of the Yangtsze one sees enormous lakes and lagoons both to the north-west and south-east sides of the hills beyond the provincial city.'
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When the port was opened, the natives, as at several other new ports, put many difficulties in the way of fixing a site for the British Settlement. They demanded. excessive prices for the lots marked off for occupation, and it was not till the port had been open for some time, and many residents had temperarily taken up an abode on the Hanyang shore, that an arrangement was arrived at. The site chosen is very bad, both from a sanitary d commercial point of view. A French Settlement was also fixed upon, but it has never been occupied. The population of Hankow is estimated at 600,000.
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Great expectations as regards trade were entertained respecting the opening of Hankow. Foreign commerce would, it was thought, be brought into immediate contact with the large internal populations of China, and a port established in the locality of the great tea producing districts. These expectations, however, have been but partially realised. Tea is, of course, the staple export, and it is at Hankow that the first steamers for home take in their cargoes. The total export of Tea from Hankow (including re-exports from Kiukiang) amounted in 1881 to 601,941 piculs, as compared with 617,229 piculs shipped in 1880. In 1881 Opium was imported to the extent of 3,922 piculs as against 2,954 piculs in 1880. The total value of the trade of the port in 1881 amounted to Tls. 41,599,591, and in 1880 to Tls. 42,285,209.