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[See [page 103].
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[See [page 105].
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[See [page 111].
We will now cross in the steam launch to the mainland 48 and step ashore at Port Edward. Here is a general view of the new town, with its ugly modern hotel and its European houses scattered about the lower slope of the hill. The territory on the mainland is rather more interesting than (44) the island. It is little more than a strip, ten miles wide, along the coastline of the bay, though we have certain rights over a larger area. Mountain ridges, rising to over a thousand feet, with sharp peaks still higher, cross it from west to east, dark and bare with deep-cut ravines which are torrents in rainy weather. A low isthmus divides the high ground round Port Edward from the main mass of the Territory; through it runs the new road towards Chifu, and at its eastern end, close to the sea, stands the Chinese walled town of Wei-hai-wei, from which the whole district takes its name. Far away in the southwest are the high mountains of Chinese Shantung. The old city, though within sight of Port Edward, is not like the surrounding territory under British control. Let us pay it a short visit to see what a Chinese provincial town is like. We 49 can go in by the eastern gate and look along the street and visit the temple of Confucius, the great Chinese 50 teacher and philosopher, who was a native of the Shantung province. Much of the space within the walls is not built on; the whole town seems sleepy and decaying, and our ideas as to cleanliness and sanitation are quite unknown to the Chinese. In the British area there are no such towns, but hundreds of little agricultural villages scattered about in the low-lying parts of the country. The Chinese peasant here is very different from the coolie or shopkeeper of Hongkong and is governed in a very different way. A Civil Commissioner, assisted by a few Europeans and a small force of police, is responsible for the control of over 150,000 Chinese. At one time there was 51 a regiment of soldiers, recruited from the natives; when this force was disbanded, some of its members became police. Even in the central offices many natives are employed on the staff, while the villages practically rule themselves through the local headmen. Here we 52 have a portrait of a typical headman, and here a group receiving medals as a reward for good service. The 53 Governor of Shantung is the nearest high official representative of China; and we may see him here in his 54 chair of state on his way to pay a formal visit to the Commissioner. Here again is a group of the two high 55 officials and their respective staffs. We are a long way from those early days, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Chinese officials refused even to write to our representatives on terms of equality.
Let us now see something of the natives and their occupations. It is market day in Port Edward; the streets are alive with crowds, buying, selling and haggling, 56 and crowding round the food stalls with their piles of strange delicacies in bowls and saucers. In one corner they are bargaining for pigs, in another are piled loads of fuel, scrub oak and fir, brought in from the country round on the backs of donkeys and mules. There is no coal, and the peasant has stripped the country of most of its woods, here as in other parts of China. Here again we have a 57 village market and a group of peasants with sacks of grain and bundles of brushwood for sale. Outside the village 58 they are threshing the grain in a primitive way with a roller, and drying peanuts on the threshing floor. Everywhere, on the banks of the streams, we find the village 59 washing-places, where clothes are washed and pounded in the fashion which the Chinese adopt all the world over. 60 Down on the shore we see the fishermen cutting up sharks for the fins, which are greatly prized by the Chinese as a relish. Mat’ou was a fishing village on the site of the present port before the Japanese occupation, and fish of all kinds swarm in the neighbouring seas. Agriculture and fishing are still the main business of the people. It is 61 true that here at Port Edward we see them repairing junks, and a great quantity of timber is lying about; but the timber must all be brought from the Yalu river, 62 and the old iron which is piled near has been salved from the sunken warships at Port Arthur. Notice the pony, with his load of brushwood, in the foreground. There are as yet no materials for local industries, and it does not seem likely that Wei-hai-wei, in its isolated corner, will grow into a great commercial centre. None the less we may see an important European settlement develop on the site of the old native fishing village. It is not too far away from Peking and Shanghai; the rainfall in the year is about the same as in London, though there are far fewer rainy days, as the rain falls more in heavy showers; while the summer is dry, and cooler than in most of China. There is already a school for European boys at Port Edward, and it seems well fitted as a summer watering-place for those whose work takes them to the Far East. In winter it is less pleasant. The northern gales bring 63 snow, as we see in this picture, and the cold is so severe that the thick ice is collected, as in northern Europe, to be stored for use in summer.