t is easily
the chief, with a population of close on half a million. The approach
from upstream is very striking, a grey city perched on a huge grey reef
and enclosed in a strong, crenellated grey wall. The narrow strip of
shore outside the walls is filled with poor, rickety buildings easily
removed when the river rises or as easily swept away if not taken down
in time. Broad, steep flights of steps lead up from the river to the
city gates, and over these stairs all the water used by hundreds of
thousands is carried in buckets.

In 1895 Chung-king was declared open as a treaty port, and since then
its commerce has grown in true modern fashion by leaps and bounds, and
there seems no limit to its development, for it is in a position to
control the up-country trade. The fleets of junks lie closely packed
three deep along the shore, and within the walls the multiplying
thousands are even more densely crowded, for the room to expand is set
by the limits of the great rock on which Chung-king stands, and
apparently every square foot of land within or without the city is
already occupied by the living or the dead. Nowhere did I see such
crowded streets, and nowhere missionaries living in such cramped
quarters as in Chung-king, a confinement all the more unendurable
because of the long months of damp heat.

The large foreign community of Chung-king has many elements, missionary,
merchant, and officials of the customs, post-office, and consular
services. And lying in the river opposite the city are generally
English, French, or German gunboats. The relations between all these
seem more cordial and helpful than in some treaty ports. So, too,
Europeans and Chinese are on an unwontedly friendly footing in
Chung-king; perhaps something may be due to the fine standard set in the
mercantile community by that pioneer trader, Archibald Little, who
boldly established himself here eight years before the town was made a
treaty port. And on the Chinese side there seemed readiness to
appreciate what the West has to offer; in fact the town has a distinctly
go-ahead air. It has already held one commercial exhibition on Western
lines, and is planning another, and it is now lighted by electricity,
boasting the best plant west of Shanghai, which it sets up against
Chengtu's mint and arsenal. There is, in fact, a real Western flavour
about the rivalry of the two Szechuan cities, recalling the relations of
Chicago and St Louis.

As a purely trad