t Sound to Hong-Kong, 21 "
--
36

The voyage by Suez is made in the Peninsular and Oriental line of
steamers. The passage is proverbially comfortless,--through the Red Sea
and Persian Gulf, across the Bay of Bengal, through the Straits of
Malacca, and up the Chinese coast, under a tropical sun. Bayard Taylor
thus describes the trip down the Red Sea:--

"We had a violent head-wind, or rather gale. Yet, in spite of this
current of air, the thermometer stood at 85 deg. on deck, and 90 deg. in the
cabin. For two or three days we had a temperature of 90 deg. to 95 deg.. This
part of the Red Sea is considered to be the hottest portion of the
earth's surface. In the summer the air is like that of a furnace, and
the bare red mountains glow like heaps of live coals. The steamers at
that time almost invariably lose some of their firemen and stewards.
Cooking is quite given up."[U]

Bankok, Singapore, and Java can be reached more quickly from England by
Puget Sound than by Suez.

Notwithstanding the discomforts of the passage down the Red Sea, the
steamers are always overcrowded with passengers, and loaded to their
utmost capacity with freight. The French line, the Messageries Imperials
de France, has been established, and is fully employed. Both lines pay
large dividends.

The growth of the English trade with China during the last sixteen years
has been very rapid. Tea has increased 1300 per cent, and silk 950.[V]

The trade between the single port of Shanghai and England and America in
the two great staples of export is seen from the following statement of
the export of tea and silk from that port from July 1, 1859, to July 1,
1860:--

Tea, lbs. Silk, bales.
Great Britain, 31,621,000 19,084
United States, 18,299,000 1,554
Canada, 1,172,000
France, 47,000

The total value of exports from England to China in 1860 was
$26,590,000. Says Colonel Sykes:--

"Our trade with China resolves itself into our taking almost exclusively
from them teas and raw silk, and their taking from us cotton, cotton
yarns, and woollens."[W]

The exports of the United States to the Pacific in 1861 were as
follows:--

To China, $5,809,724
Australia, 3,410,000
Islands of the Pacific 484,000
----------
Total,