Directory_and_Chronicle_1930 — Page 987

Directories & Chronicles 香港指南 All

CHUNGKING

925

and shipped to Ichang, Hankow, and Shasi, consignments to the last-named port being transhipped there into smaller junks and forwarded to the southern provinces, via the Tung Ting lake.

The city occupies the end of a high and rocky bluff forming a peninsula, at the junction of the river Kia-ling with the Yangtsze, 1,400 miles from the moutli of the latter. The principal streets of the city, in which are many fine shops, are on the side of the Yangtsze. The city is surrounded by a crenelated stone wall in good repair, which is some five miles in circumference, pierced with nine gates. This wall was built in 1761, replacing an older one. Chungking is now electrically lighted, a native company 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. In 1928 the net value of trade was Hk. Tls. 72,236,585, as compared with Hk. Tls. 66,029,929 in 1927, Hk. Tls. 73,757,098 in 1926, Hk. Tls. 65,706,036 in 1925, and Hk. Tls. 65,575,042 in 1924. 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.

The Yangtsze is navigable for steamers froni 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_1930 — Page 987

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