which was annexed
by Japan sixteen years ago. It is about twice the size of Wales, and
marks the boundary between the China Sea and the Eastern Sea, which
farther north passes into the Yellow Sea. The coast and its hills are
sometimes seen close at hand, sometimes far off, and sometimes they
disappear in the distance. With a glass we can distinguish the
lighthouses, always erected on small islands off the mainland. The
Chinese coast is dangerous, being full of reefs, holms, and shallows.

Hong Kong and the adjoining seas are visited from the middle of July to
the middle of September by the destructive whirlwinds called typhoons.
The vortices, spinning round with tremendous rapidity, are usually
formed far out in the Pacific Ocean, and gradually advance towards the
mainland. They move at a rate of nine miles an hour, and therefore the
weather stations on the Philippines, and other islands lying in the
track of the typhoons, can send warnings by telegraph to the Chinese
coast. Then the black triangle is hoisted on a tall mast in the harbour
of Hong Kong, for instance, and is visible for a long distance. Every
one knows what it means: a typhoon is on the way. The Chinese junks make
in towards land, where they find shelter under the high coast, and all
other vessels strengthen their moorings.

On November 2 we know by the yellowish-brown colour of the water that we
are off the mouth of the Blue River, as the Yang-tse-kiang is called by
Europeans. A pilot comes on board to take us through the dangerous,
uncertain fairway, and a little later we have flat land on both sides of
us, and are in the estuary of the river.

Shanghai is situated on a small affluent which runs into the
Yang-tse-kiang close to its mouth, and large ocean steamers cannot go up
to the town. After the _Delhi_ has dropped its anchor we proceed up the
river in a steam tender. The low banks soon become more animated, the
houses stand closer together, factories appear amongst them, and Chinese
vessels lie moored on both sides, including two sorry warships of wood,
relics of a time gone by. They are high in the bow and stern, and from
the mast floats the blue dragon on its yellow field.[15] At length the
stately "bund" of Shanghai comes into sight with a row of fine, tall
houses. This is not China, but a bit of Europe, the white town in the
yellow land, the great and wealthy Shanghai with its 12,000 Europeans,
beside the Chinese town inhabited by 650,000 nat