Those of my readers who have followed me through all or any of my eleven volumes of travels must be aware that my chief wish on arriving at a foreign settlement or treaty port in the East is to get out of it as soon as possible, and that I have not the remotest hankering after Anglo-Asiatic attractions. Nor is Shanghai, “The Model Settlement of the East.” an exception to the general rule, though I gratefully acknowledge the kindness and hospitality which I met with there, as everywhere, and recall with pleasure my many sojourns at the British Consulate as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Lowndes Bullock.

But as the outlet of the commerce of the Yangtze Valley, and as a foreign city which has risen on Chinese shores in little more than half a century to the position and importance of one of the great trading centres of the world—its exports and imports for 1898 being of the value of £37,680,875 sterling—it claims such notice as I can give it, which is chiefly in the shape of impressions.

I have reached Shanghai four times by Japanese steamers, three times in coasting steamers of American build, once in one of the superb vessels of the Canadian Empress line, once from Hankow in a metamorphosed Dutch gunboat, and the last time, after nearly three and a half years of far eastern travel, in a small Korean Government steamer, her quaint, mysterious, and nearly unknown national flag exciting much speculation and interest as she steamed slowly up the river.