CO129-018 - Others - 1846 — Page 490

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REPORT ON

pass to vibrate so much that it became useless; the same vibration was observed on the high land at the eastern extremity of Chusan.

Climate.--In this respect Chusan may be said to vie with the most favoured regions of the earth; it is the Montpellier of China. There are only three months in the year which can be called hot-June, July, and August. Fires are sometimes kept up till the middle of June, and woollen clothing is worn for nine months. The cold weather sets in about the middle or end of September, but the average duration of hot weather does not exceed three months: the remainder of the cold, bracing, or genial, according to the season.

is year hottest season, the thermometer in a good house, facing the harbour, Even during the ranges from 80° to 86° Fahrenheit, very seldom approaching 90°, and frequently descending at night to 78°. The average of the month of August is about 83°. (See accompanying Meteorological Register for June, July, and August, 1844, kept at Lieutenant Skead's, the harbour master*.) In September the mercury descends to 74°, and in the early part of October the cold weather season is established: the thermo- meter stands at 49° to 59° at sunrise towards the end of the month. In November the north wind is piercingly cold and bracing. In December the temperature is still further reduced; the ground is covered with a hoar frost; ice of half an inch thick is general in the plains. In January the thermometer sinks to 20° F.; there is a clear, bracing, azure atmosphere; snow falls frequently, and remains on the east peak, two feet deep, for ten days. February is like January. In March the vicissitudes are great: thermometer 27 at night; days hot; hills around snow-capped. April, easterly winds; sun breaking forth with increasing heat. May, ditto; but fires still necessary to the European.

The climate of Chusan is far more favourable to health than that of either Ningpo, Shanghai, or even of stations further north. Roman Catholic missionaries say that they are unable to stand the The climate and excessive heat of those cities, and that no European can remain there with impunity for a few successive years. suffered greatly up the Yang-tze-kiang river in 1842: thirteen men of Our troops the 98th Regiment dropped dead from the heat of the sun. and ague, diarrhoea and cholera, were rapidly destroying our soldiers Fever and sailors off Nankin. The whole northern region of the Yang-tze- kiang, of the Yellow river, and of the Peiho, is a flat marshy country, inundated as rice fields, or covered with water for a great part of the year, and subject to intense solar heat for about five months, without any mountain or sea-breezes to temper the atmosphere. Chusan has a constant sea-breeze at Tinghae during the summer months from the south-west monsoon; and the varied forms of its mountains and valleys produce a continual change of renovating airs. The thermometer rises at Shanghai to 107° F. in the shade; at Ningpo, as high; and at Chusan, at Lieutenant Skead's, the harbour-master, it rarely rises to 86° Ft.

*

To economise space, this and various other documents, explanatory corres- pondence, and statistical tables, have been omitted.

+ It is observed in the "Nautical Magazine" for 1843, page 7, that the cli- mate of the middle provinces of China is said to be delightful; that of Pekin

CHUSAN.

Invalids from Shanghai and Ningpo, as well as from Hong Kong, Canton, and Amoy, seek and find health at Chusan. It is of the utmost importance to us to have a healthy station on the coast of China where our troops can be located and found always ready for active service. A regiment from Hong Kong could not endure the fatigue and exposure of one week in the Yang-tze-kiang district; a regiment from Chusan would be found as effective for service as any regiment of the United Kingdom, and might be marched to Pekin if necessary.

An ice-house is open at Chusan from 1st of June to 1st of Septem- ber; the daily consumption in July is about 800lbs. a-day by the English subscribers, of five rupees each; they pay also about one far- thing a pound for the ice, which is collected in winter, by a Chinaman from the canals around, and deposited in a mud-walled house with a high thatched roof. Conduits carry off the melted ice outside the building; dry straw is thickly strewed over the ice. The Chinese use ice extensively for preserving fish.

Health of the Troops.-The state of the artillery stationed at Chu san, compared with the dreadful mortality of the artillery stationed at Hong Kong (see my Report on Hong Kong), is very remarkable. There landed at Chusan of the Madras European artillery, in Novem- bes, 1842, after going through the whole campaign, one captain, one lieutenant, one bugler, three corporals, four bombardiers, and forty-nine gunners, total sixty-two; to these must be added three more, who re- joined from Hong Kong in April, 1843, and six from Madras in November, 1843.

The deaths up to August, 1844, were only five, viz., four gunners and one bombardier. The mortality may be considered at less than two per cent, per annum. The men are in the most efficient order, and as ready for active service as if they had been stationed at Woolwich the last two years.

Four companies of Her Majesty's 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment have been stationed at Chusan since the conclusion of the war, after being engaged in all the campaigns, and they have not lost by death one per cent. per annum. That portion of the 18th which returned from Amoy were very sickly.

The admissions into Chusan Hospital for Europeans from 1st January to 31st July, 1844, were 401 (including 104 syphilitic cases); of these but 6 died. Of 60 officers who have resided at Chusan for the last eighteen months, not one has died.

The contrast between the men of Her Majesty's 18th Regiment, stationed at Hong Kong, Koolungsoo (Amoy), and Chusan, is very striking. Out of 500 men of the 18th Regiment stationed at Koolung- soo* in 1843, there died seventy-five men and two officers; the remain-

agrees even with strangers; epidemic diseases are very rare and the ravages of the plague are entirely unknown; but the province of Canton is one of the most un. healthy portions of the country, and such it probably is. The writer is quite cor- rect. The Chinese officials view appointments to the Canton province as a sort of honourable banishment, as we view Sierra Leone.

Koolungsoo is exactly the same geological formation as Hong Kong. We have left the bones of about a thousand gallant men at this wretched and useless island, which mightat any time be captured by a 10-gun brig,