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CHAPTER III - HANGCHOW

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2011

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Summary

A journey of 150 miles to visit friends in the ancient city of Hangchow required no other preparations than the hire of a boat and the engaging of a servant, who I was compelled to dismiss a few days later for gross dishonesty. 2755 steam launches, owned and run by Chinese, towing 7889 passenger boats, carrying 605 foreign and 125,000 native passengers, entered and cleared in 1897 between Hangchow, Shanghai, and Soochow.

Every evening one of these launches, towing a long string of native boats, leaves the Soochow creek below the British Consulate for the new treaty ports, opened as such only in 1896. My small bamboo-roofed boat, in which I could just stand upright, much decorated in the tawdry style of Chinese fourth-class fancy, and through which irremediable draughts coursed friskily, was the contemptible final joint of a tail of nine quaint and picturesque passage junks and family houseboats, a varnished procession of high-sterned, two-storeyed, many-windowed arks, squirming and snaking along at the stern of a noisy, asthmatic tow-boat. There were red flags flying, gongs crashing out dissonance, crackers exploding, poles with clothes drying on them pushed out of windows, incense sticks smouldering, and reports of firearms; and with this cheerful din, the usual accompaniment of Chinese movement, we started in the red twilight.

I paid six dollars for my boat with three men, and five dollars fifty cents for towage, about 23s.

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The Yangtze Valley and Beyond
An Account of Journeys in China, Chiefly in the Province of Sze Chuan and Among the Man-tze of the Somo Territory
, pp. 29 - 43
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1899

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  • HANGCHOW
  • Isabella Bird
  • Book: The Yangtze Valley and Beyond
  • Online publication: 05 July 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511709234.005
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  • HANGCHOW
  • Isabella Bird
  • Book: The Yangtze Valley and Beyond
  • Online publication: 05 July 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511709234.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • HANGCHOW
  • Isabella Bird
  • Book: The Yangtze Valley and Beyond
  • Online publication: 05 July 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511709234.005
Available formats
×