Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

171 страница из 418

Shanghai is a port which has grown up almost entirely since 1844, the date of its first occupation by foreigners for purposes of commerce. Then there were only forty-four foreign merchant ships, twenty-three foreign residents and families, one consular flag, and two Protestant missionaries. Twelve years later, there were, for six months’ returns, 249 British ships, fifty-seven American, eleven Hamburg, eleven Dutch, nine Swedish, seven Danish, six Spanish, and seven Portuguese, besides those of other nationalities. The returns for the whole year embraced 434 ships of all countries; tea exports, 76,711,659 pounds; silk, 55,537 bales.

Shanghai (“the Upper Sea”) has been written variously Canhay, Changhay, Xanghay, Zonghae, Shanhae, Shanghay, and so forth. Its proper pronunciation is as if the final syllable were “high,” not “hay.”

“Sailing towards the north of China,” says Milne, “keeping perhaps fifty or sixty miles off the coast, as the ship enters the thirtieth parallel, a stranger is startled some fine morning by coming on what looks like a shoal—perhaps a sand-bank, a reef—he knows not what. It is an expanse of coloured water, stretching out as far as the eye can reach, east, north, and west, and entirely distinct from the deep-blue sea which hitherto the vessel had been ploughing. Of course, he finds that it is the ‘Yellow Sea;’ a sea so yellow, turbid, and thick, certainly, that you might think all the pease-soup in creation, and a great deal more, had been emptied into one monster cistern.” The name is therefore appropriate, as are the designations of several others: