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We had been here somewhere about ten days when the Chinese governor came on board, attended, as is the custom in China, by a numerous suite of lesser mandarins and their retainers. Chefoo is an important military command, as well as one of the chief naval ports in the empire; hence the governor is a high military mandarin. From the governor downwards they were all dressed pretty much alike.
The Chinese Government consents to Japan's building a railway from Chefoo or Lungkow to join the Kiaochou-Tsinanfu railway. Article 4. The Chinese Government engages, in the interest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open by herself as soon as possible certain important cities and towns in the Province of Shantung as Commercial Ports.
After some diplomatic fencing Sir Thomas agreed to meet the Chinese envoy at Chefoo a seaport about half way between Shanghai and Peking, a great summer resort of the foreigners in China the Newport of the eastern world. Here, in the month of September, 1876, with much surrounding pomp and ceremony, a convention was signed between the English and the Chinese plenipotentiaries.
On one occasion, when making "a little trip to Japan," I took my Pekingese boy with me. Having missed the fortnightly mail-boat I made the passage from Chefoo in a small German collier, and on arrival at Nagasaki took rickshas to the hotel.
There are lines between Pekin and Tientsin, and lines connecting the capital with the principal places in Manchuria as far as the Russian frontier on the Amour and the Usuri, while Newchwang, Chefoo, Shanghai, Yangchow, Souchow, the seven treaty ports on the Yangtse, Canton, Woochow, Lungchow, and, in fact, most of the principal cities in the empire, are now joined by wire with one another and with the metropolis.
By the treaty of Tientsin it is included in the clause which states that any foreign steamer going to it, a closed port, shall be confiscated. Yet by the Chefoo Convention, Chungking is to become an open port as soon as the first foreign steamer shall reach there. This reminds one of the conflicting instructions once issued by a certain government in reference to the building of a new gaol.
Chefoo, notwithstanding its uninteresting appearance, seems to be a pretty regular port of call for men-of-war, several of which are lying at anchor within the bar.
He reached Hongkong on 2nd July, and not only stayed there for a day or two as the guest of the Governor, Sir T. Pope Hennessey, but found sufficient time to pay a flying visit to the Chinese city of Canton. Thence he proceeded to Shanghai and Chefoo.
The Chinese Government agrees that as regards the railway to be built by China herself from Chefoo or Lungkow to connect with the Kiaochow-Tsinanfu railway, if Germany abandons the privilege of financing the Chefoo-Weihsien line, China will approach Japanese capitalists to negotiate for a loan. Art. 3.
Our first impression of Chefoo is that it is the place of all others on the station to send emaciated ships' companies to regain their stamina. The district has a special manufacture of silk, much prized by our female friends at home, made from the fibres of the bamboo. Did you ever see such a wonderful plant as that same bamboo?
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