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Updated: May 25, 2025
To Ichang, an everyday trip. Start from Shanghai, and the city's appearance. At Hankow. Meaning of the name. Trio of strategic and military points of the empire. Han-yang and Wu-ch'ang. Commercial and industrial future of Hankow. Getting our passports. Britishers in the city. The commercial Chinaman. The native city: some impressions. Clothing of the people. Cotton and wool.
Across the way, as I write, I can see Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. Long before the foreigner set foot so far up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance the Chinese used to call it the centre of the world.
At the extreme left were large business houses and a club. Hankow is a great depository for tea, and, with the two adjacent cities of Han-yang and Wu-chang, it has an immense population, reaching into the millions. Many religious denominations are said to be represented in Hankow, but we saw no pretentious churches.
On the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and important provinces of the whole eighteen. Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.
We estimated our walk in this direction at about two miles, but a good deal of it was along a single street flanked on both sides by ruins. We then embarked in a sanpan and came down the Han, passing through a multitude of junks of great variety in shape and cargo. We landed near its mouth on the Han-yang side, and walked to that town, which is a Foo or prefectoral city, and walled.
In order to defeat this plan, which was manifestly adopted with the view of preventing us from coming in contact with the people, I landed near Han-yang, on the side of the river Han opposite to Hankow, and walked in the first instance to the top of a hill where there is a kind of fortress, from which we had a good view of Ouchang, Han-yang, and Hankow.
I am anchored off the mouth of the river Han, which separates Hankow and Han-yang on the left bank of the Yangtze. On its right bank is Ouchang Foo. I do not see room for the eight millions of people, at which rumour puts the population of these three towns. The scene is very animated. We are surrounded by hundreds of boats, and the banks are a sea of heads. My gentlemen are gone ashore.
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