Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 415

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neighborhood of the city, clusters of the pine or the cypress will often point you to hallowed retreats, where rest the remains of mul- titudes, once so busy here, now gone to "that undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.'

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The trades and handicrafts of the city are numerous and thrifty, and sometimes extensive. Our means of obtaining accurate informa- tion concerning all these are, however, exceedingly few and limited. Of general statistics the Chinese know very little; especially are they ignorant of the modern systems of collecting and publishing such facts as are now to be found in the commercial dictionaries of the West regarding its cities, trades, &c. They know that their fa- thers and the fathers of their fathers, from time immemorial, produc- ed, manufactured, bought or bartered, such and such articles at such and such times, and after a certain fashion; and they do, or endeavor to do, the same. Judging from such data as a short residence has brought within our reach, we infer that for sometime previously to the termination of the late war, the general commerce of Shánghái had been at a stand, or on the decline. Dilapidated dwellings and ware- houses, and a mass of unserviceable shipping lead to this conclusion. The restoration of peace, and the extension of intercourse however, have changed the course of events, and the flood-tide of prosperity is now strongly set in, and it must be a very powerful disturbing in- fluence that can prevent the gradual increase and extension of com-

merce.

If the inhabitants of Christendom do their duty, and spread abroad in the land, among all its inhabitants, the gospel of peace, so that the empire may be preserved from war, both foreign and domestic, and speedily rescued from the degrading yoke of idolatry and its evil ac- companiments, commerce cannot but go on here increasing. Chi- na is not, as some would have us believe, overstocked with human kind. With proper culture, the soil is capable of supporting a much greater population than at present, which, when influenced by the principles of pure religion, will become much more industrious, and their labors much more productive.

Without dwelling on the future, we will glance at some of the principal scenes of activity, as they present themselves to the thou- sand eager spectators, who, with intense interest, from every high place in Christendom, are looking to see what is to be found in this long secluded empire,-just waking up from the dream of ages, opening a new world for their enterprise.

The most important article in the domestic if not in the foreign commerce of Shanghái, is cotton. The cultivation and manufac-