Directory_and_Chronicle_1927 — Page 909

Directories & Chronicles 香港指南 All

CHUNGKING

831

with an authorised capital of $300,000 having been formed for that purpose. The climate of Chungking is depressing, the summer being hot and damp, the winters raw and chilly, with thick fogs from November to March. Spring and Autumn can indeed hardly be said to exist. The ordinary rise of the river is about 75 feet; on 6th August, 1898, it rose to 101 ft., on 11th August, 1905, to 108 ft., on 22nd July, 1920, to 95 ft. 2 in., and on 14th July, 1921, to 100 ft. In 1908 it only attained a height of 52 feet 4 inches. According to a Chinese report, the river rose 120 feet in 1878. On the left bank of the Kialing and facing Chungking, extending below the junction of the two rivers, is the walled city of Kiang-Peh-ting, formerly within the district of Li Min Fu, but now incorporated in Chungking Fu. These two cities and the large villages in their immediate neighbourhood are estimated to contain a popula- tion of about 700,000.

The port was declared open to foreign trade in 1891, since which date a large trade has been done both in imports and exports, carried in foreign chartered junks. The net value of the trade in 1925 was Hk. Tls. 65,706,036, as compard with Hk. Tls. 65,575,402 in 1924, Hk. Tls. 60,892,937 in 1923, Hk. Tls. 60,179,809 in 1922, and Hk. Tls. 52,115,511 in 1921. Trade, since the revolution, has been affected by brigandage in the interior and civil war. Bands of robbers haunt the roads throughout the province, especially in the mountainous regions, and merchants fear to transport cargo. rising

started in 1904 by a man who said he was commissioned by Heaven to wipe out the missionaries, was ruthlessly suppressed. One church was burned and a few con- verts were killed, and then "the Chinese officials caused shell to be fired into the mob until all (several hundred) were killed!" A local police force has been created.

The Yangtsze is navigable for steamers from Ichang, not only to Chungking, but as far as Sui-fu, where the Min river joins the Yangtsze, and during high water in summer the Min river is also navigable as far as Kiating. By the Japanese Treaty of 1894, the right of steam navigation to Chungking was secured, and in the spring of 1898 the voyage was successfully accomplished by Mr. A. Little, with the small steamer Leechuen, which, however, being of limited power, had to be tracked up the rapids in the same way as junks. On 6th May, 1900, the two light-draught British gunboats Woodcock and Woodlark arrived from Ichang, having left that port on 5th April. The return journey occupied 25 steaming hours. On 12th June, the Yangtze Trading Company's steamer, the Pioneer, commenced her maiden voyage and arrived at Chungking on 20th June. This steamer was afterwards purchased by the British Government. Freight rates by junk have enormously increased in recent years. The s.s. Loongmow, of about 1,000 tons gross tonnage, specially built for the Ichang- Chungking run, made her appearance in June, 1920, and on more than one occasion, steaming by daylight only, has completed in less than six days the round trip to Ichang. With the present accurate surveying of the Upper Yangtsze and the aids to navigation which have been installed, as well as the measures which are now being taken to organise a reliable pilotage service, the voyage from Ichang to this port by steamer is no longer the gambling proposition which it formerly used to be considered. It is now possible with suitable craft and the exercise of sufficient dis- crimination in the selection of crew and pilots for steamers to navigate the Upper River for eight months of the year. Fifty-four steamers and motor vessels ply above Ichang.

Directory_and_Chronicle_1927 — Page 909

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