Directory_and_Chronicle_1922 — Page 987

HANGCHOW

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The site selected for the Foreign Settlement extends for half a mile along the east bank of the Grand Canal; it covers over half a square mile and is four miles from the nearest point of the city wall. The Japanese Settlement adjoins it on the north and is about the same size. The Custom-house and Commissioner's and Assistants' residences are built on the Customs Lot, and there is also a Chinese Police Station in a modern building. The British Consulate is on the west side of the Grand Canal, opposite to the Japanese Settlement, and is not in the Foreign Settlement.

The commodities chiefly dealt in are tin, kerosene oil, soap, sugar, prepared tobacco, varnish, paper fans, silk piecegoods, raw silk and tea. The principal articles of export are tea, silk, cotton yarn and samshoo. The tea comes froni Anhwei and Pingsuey, near Shaohsing, and from the neighbourhood of Hangchow, where the valuable Lungching tea is grown. The net value of the trade of the port (recorded by the Maritime Customs) in 1920 was Hk. Tls. 19,968,643, as compared with Hk. Tls. 18,365,178 in 1919. By far the greater part of the trade, however, passed through the inland barriers and not through the Customs.

Some 3 or 4 miles south-west of Hangchow city lies the rising little town of Zakow, situated upon the Ch'ien-t'ang River at the railway head. The Standard Oil Company, the Asiatic Petroleum Co., and several missionary establishments (including a large College) have their headquarters here. For residential purposes the hilly sites in the vicinity, overlooking the broad estuary and open to the sea breezes, afford far more sanitary locations than the low-lying malarial Settlement 10 miles away. Halfway between Hangchow and Shanghai is Kashing, where the Grand Canal joins the Whangpoo River on which Shanghai is situated. Kashing is a Customs Sta- tion under Hangchow and was first opened in 1898 for collecting duties on foreign opium, owing to the fiscal arrangements being against the collection at Hangchow. It has a completely equipped Custom-house, but has not yet acquired the full status of a Treaty Port.

A railway from the Settlement to the further end of Hangchow City near the Ch'ien T'ang river was completed in September, 1907. It was built solely by Chinese and with Chinese capital. There is now railway connection with Shanghai vid Kashing. Twenty-eight miles north of Hangchow is situated the well-known summer resort of Mokanshan. It can be reached from Shanghai by way of the railway and a motor-boat in ten hours. There are now over two hundred houses on the slope of a hill about 2,250 feet high. The scenery is magnificent and the views are very grand. Bamboo forests cover the mountain and afford shade to all the roads, and clear mountain springs abound. Chairs and coolies for baggage are always available, and are under contract with the Mokanshan Association. Houses more or less completely furnished can be rented at Tls. 100 to 350 per season (four months). The Shanghai Municipality has lately purchased two houses as a sanatorium for its employés, and a competent nurse is in charge. The difference in temperature from the plain amounts to 10°F. in the day and 15°F. at night.

Save for the prevalence of malaria-which, however, is not of a virulent type-the climate of Hangchow is fairly salubrious. July and August are hot, the Spring months are wet and raw, but the Autumn is delightful, and the Winter is cold and bracing. The minimum temperature recorded within the period 1911-1919 was 15.5° Fahrenheit in, January, 1916, and the maximum was 104° F. in August, 1917. The mean maximum for. this period was 82.6° F., the mean minimum 43.7 F., and the mean 63.7° F. Snow usually falls a few times during three months of the year. The temperate and sub- tropical zones meet in the neighbourhood, and the flora is consequently rich and varied, some 50 per cent. of the species being tropical or sub-tropical plants, while the remainder are mostly Eastern, Central or North China species. The fauna is less rich except in the case of insect life, which is very abundant. The number and variety of the fishes inhabiting the net-work of canals are surprisingly large. In conclusion, it may be interesting to note that this neighbourhood is the most northerly recorded habitat of the cobra.