[VOL IV] AMOY, FROM KO-LONG-SOO

AMOY, FROM KO-LONG-SOO

Cover Image: Amoy, from Ko-long-soo / Gulangyu Island XiaMen FuJian China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by W.Floyd – ALAMY Image ID:2X55NFY

*Ko-long-soo（Gulangyu）, located in the southwest of Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, is a picturesque island and a world-renowned tourist destination.

With varied colours drest, the mountain-steep
Reflects its radiance o’er the glassy deep,
Nature’s broad mirror, where its giant form
Is seen through ages, scathless mid the storm.

H.

ALTHOUGH long excluded from intercourse with this picturesque port, the English were early in habits of commercial friendship with the citizens. Here a stirring and a sterling trade existed before foreigners were restricted in their harbor to Canton; and none of the five free ports thrown open by the interference of British arms has welcomed back the stranger with more sincerity than that of Heamun. An island, fertile and fortified, obstructs the winds and waves in their progress from the east, rendering the inner cove always smooth and sheltered. But this agreeable spot, called by the natives Ko-long-soo, or island of crystal fountains, is insufficient to save the vessels that lie inside from the depredations of desperate men, that seek their sustenance by piracy alone. All night long the hoarse sounds of “red artillery,” booming heavily along the waters, tell that the crews of the junks at anchor in the bay, are prepared to defend themselves against sudden aggression; and this practice prevailed even while British men-of-war lay moored in the offing.

Nothing can be imagined more pleasing, picturesque, and animated, than the prospect of this vast mercantile harbour from the heights of Ko-long-soo. The deep channel, crowded with junks, is at the observer’s feet; the narrow promontory, forming a chief suburb, projects beyond; further still is the second passage, backed by those noble hills of granite which separate the marine district from the mainland.

Essentially nautical, the inhabitants of Ko-long-soo and Amoy have cultivated foreign trade and coasting traffic with considerable success. Excluded from the immediate advantages of internal communication and carriage, by the intervention of extensive and elevated mountain-chains, they have found more than remuneration in external dealing. Formosa (TaiWan), the nurse of pirates, has long conducted a profitable trade with the Heamuns; the merchants of this port have dealt directly with Singapore for many a year, and there is a continuous export of sugar to the northern towns, for which rice and other necessities are brought back in return. From their isolated position, the Fokiense retain many peculiarities that are not observable amongst the natives of other provinces; their language, whether it be the pure and primitive tongue, or a corruption induced by foreign intercourse, is nearly unintelligible to all other Chinamen. Fokien also is the seat of the black-tea cultivation; the term bohea being only a mispronunciation of Vasee, the name of the shan, or hills, where it is grown and prepared; and tea, an abusive sound of the more proper term cha, the double letter ch being sounded t by the Fokienese.（*Vide vol. ii. p. 69. Vol. iii. p. 56.）

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