Têng-chou, situated on the north coast of Shantung 330 li or about 110 miles by road west of Weihaiwei. The total number of prefectures (fu) in Shantung is ten, of magistracies one hundred and seven. As Shantung itself is estimated to contain 56,000 square miles of territory,[8] the average size of each of the Shantung prefectures may be put down at 5,600 and that of each of the magistracies at about 520 square miles. The British territory of Weihaiwei being rather less than 300 square miles in extent is equivalent in area to a small-sized district-magistracy. The functions of a Chinese district magistrate have been described by some Europeans as somewhat analogous to those of an English mayor, but the analogy is very misleading. Not only has the district magistrate greater powers and responsibilities than the average mayor, but he presides over a far larger area. He is chief civil officer not only within the walls of the district capital but also throughout an extensive tract of country that is often rich and populous and full of towns and villages.
The eastern part of the Shantung Peninsula, in which Weihaiwei and the neighbouring districts of Jung-ch'êng, Wên-têng and Ning-hai are situated, is neither rich nor populous as compared with the south-western parts of the Province. The land is not unfertile, but the agricultural area is somewhat small, for the country is very hilly. Like the greater part of north China, Shantung is liable to floods and droughts, and local famines are not uncommon. The unequal distribution of the rainfall is no doubt partly the result of the almost total absence of forest. Forestation is and always has been a totally neglected art in China, and the wanton manner in which timber has been wasted and destroyed without any serious attempt at replacement is one of the most serious blots on Chinese administration, as well as one of the chief causes of the poverty of the people.[9] If north China is to be saved from becoming a desert (for the arable land in certain districts is undoubtedly diminishing in quantity year by year) it will become urgently necessary for the Government to undertake forestation on a large scale and to spend money liberally in protecting the young forests from the cupidity of the ignorant peasants. The German Government in Kiaochou is doing most valuable work in the reforestation of the hills that lie within its jurisdiction, and to a very modest extent Weihaiwei is acting similarly. Perhaps the most encouraging sign is the genuine interest that the Chinese are beginning to take in these experiments, though it is difficult to make them realise the enormous economic and climatic advantages which forestation on a large scale would bring to their country.
THE MANG-TAO TREE (see p. 384).
A HALT IN YÜ-CHIA-K'UANG DEFILE (see p. 18).
It must have been the treelessness of the district and the waterless condition of the mountains as viewed from the harbour and the sea-coast that prompted the remark made in an official report some years ago that Weihaiwei is "a colder Aden"; and indeed if we contemplate the coast-line from the deck of a steamer the description seems apt enough. A ramble through the Territory among the valleys and glens that penetrate the interior in every direction is bound to modify one's first cheerless impressions very considerably. Trees, it is true, are abundant only in the immediate neighbourhood of villages and in the numerous family burial-grounds; but the streams are often lined with graceful willows, and large areas on the mountain-slopes are covered with green vegetation in the shape of scrub-oak. At certain seasons of the year the want of trees is from an æsthetic point of view partly atoned for by the blended tints of the growing crops; and certainly to the average English eye the waving wheat-fields and the harvesters moving sickle in hand through the yellow grain offer a fairer and more home-like spectacle than is afforded by the marshy rice-lands of the southern provinces. On the whole, indeed, the scenery of Weihaiwei is picturesque and in some places beautiful.[10] The chief drawback next to lack of forest is the want of running water. The streams are only brooks that can be crossed by stepping-stones. In July and August, when the rainfall is greatest, they become enormously swollen for a few days, but their courses are short and the flood-waters are soon carried down to the sea. In winter and spring some of the streams wholly disappear, and the greatest of them becomes the merest rivulet.
The traveller who approaches Weihaiwei by sea from the east or south makes his first acquaintance with the Shantung coast at a point about thirty miles (by sea) east of the Weihaiwei harbour. This is the Shantung Promontory, the Chinese name of which is Ch'êng Shan Tsui or Ch'êng Shan T'ou. Ch'êng Shan is the name of the hill which forms the Promontory, while Tsui and T'ou (literally Mouth and Head) mean Cape or Headland. Before the Jung-ch'êng magistracy was founded (in 1735) this extreme eastern region was a military district like Weihaiwei. Taking its name from the Promontory, it was known as Ch'êng-shan-wei.
Ch'êng Shan, with all the rest of the present Jun-ch'êng district, is within the British "sphere of influence"; that is to say, Great Britain has the right to erect fortifications there and to station troops: rights which, it may be mentioned, have never been exercised.
The Shantung Promontory has been the scene of innumerable shipwrecks, for the sea there is apt to be rough, fogs are not uncommon, and there are many dangerous rocks. The first lighthouse—a primitive affair—is said to have been erected in 1821 by a pious person named Hsü Fu-ch'ang; but long before that a guild of merchants used to light a great beacon fire every night on a conspicuous part of the hill. A large bell was struck, so the records state, when the weather was foggy. The present lighthouse is a modern structure under the charge of the Chinese Imperial Customs authorities. Behind the Promontory—that is, to the west (landward) side—there is a wide stretch of comparatively flat land which extends across the peninsula. It may be worth noting that an official of the Ming dynasty named T'ien Shih-lung actually recommended in a state paper that a canal should be cut through this neck of land so as to enable junks to escape the perils of the rock-bound Promontory. He pointed out that the land was level and sandy and that several ponds already existed which could be utilised in the construction of the canal. Thus, he said, could be avoided the great dangers of the rocks known as Shih Huang Ch'iao and Wo Lung Shih. The advice of the amateur engineer was not acted upon, but his memorial (perhaps on account of its literary style) was carefully preserved and has been printed in the Chinese annals of the Jung-ch'êng district.
These annals contain an interesting reference to one of the two groups of rocks just named. Wo Lung Shih means "Sleeping dragon rocks," and no particular legend appears to be attached to them, though it would have been easy to invent one. But the Shih Huang Ch'iao, or Bridge of the First Emperor, is regarded by the people as a permanent memorial of that distinguished monarch who in the third century B.C. seized the tottering throne of the classic Chou dynasty and established himself as the First Emperor (for such is the title he gave himself) of a united China. Most Europeans know nothing of this remarkable man except that he built the Great Wall of China and rendered his reign infamous by the Burning of the Books and the slaughter of the scholars. Whether his main object in the latter proceeding was to stamp out all memory of the acts of former dynasties so that to succeeding ages he might indeed be the First of the historical Emperors, or whether it was not rather an act of savagery such as might have been expected of one who was not "born in the purple" and who derived his notions of civilisation from the semi-barbarous far-western state of Ch'in, is perhaps an impossible question to decide: and indeed the hatred of the Chinese literati for a sovereign who despised literature and art may possibly have led them to be guilty of some exaggeration in the accounts they have given us of his acts of vandalism and murder.
During his short reign as Emperor, Ch'in Shih Huang-ti (who died
