Directory_and_Chronicle_1925 — Page 997

HANGCHOW

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near the City Railway Station and others near the Publie Garden on the Lake, besides one with western accommodation on the lake-shore near the Imperial Island. A fire Y.M.C.A. building was completed early in 1920. The excursions around Hang- chow are numerous and extraordinarily picturesque; and any person who can allow a month for the trip should not fail to explore the rapids of the Ch'ien-t'ang River as far as the Anhwei border. The green crystalline water and constant alternation of gorges and park-like rolling country, the lofty heights, heavily afforested right down to the sandy banks with every variety of conifer, camphor tree, scrub oak, maple, tallow tree, bamboo, etc., combine to form a series of landscapes scarcely equalled in Japan. Sport of all kinds is to be liad in profusion, including excellent fly-fishing.

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 Hangchow Electric Light Company has erected outside the Kên Shan Mên a large installation for the supply of current to the suburbs.

The commodities chiefly dealt in are tin, kerosene oil, soap, sugar, prepared tobacco, varnish, paper fans, silk piece-goods, 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 products of the Ting Hsin Cotton Mill suffice to supply the needs not only of the immediate neighbourhood but a growing market at places south of Shanghai. Some 2,000 hands are employed at the factory, which has about 20,000 spindles running. There is another mill producing cotton yarn at Siaoshan with a capacity of 15,000 spindles, and these two mills between them have successfully ousted the imported article. The net value of the trade of the port (recorded by the Maritime Customs) in 1923 was Hk. Tls. 26,573,973, as compared with Hk. Tls. 25,450,294 in 1922.

Some three or four 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 (includ- ing a large College) have their headquarters here, and the Railway Administration are laying 1,200 feet of stone bunding along the river-front. For residential purposes the hly 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 Tang 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-launch service in ten hours. There are now over 500 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 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 1912-1921 was 15.5° Fahrenheit in January, 1916, and the maximum was 104° F. in August, 1917. The mean maximum for