China from a medical point of view in 1860 and 1861 : to which is added a chapter on Nagasaki as a sanitarium / by Charles Alexander Gordon.

  • Gordon, C. A. (Charles Alexander), Sir, 1821-1899.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: China from a medical point of view in 1860 and 1861 : to which is added a chapter on Nagasaki as a sanitarium / by Charles Alexander Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    stock of fuel ] for among the many valuable mineral productions of Japan, coal of excellent quality is not the least important. Nagasaki was the most convenient port for us to touch at, and towards Nagasaki was the '‘Vulean^’ steered. The weather with which we were favored was in every way charming, the temperature such that we were able to enjoy being on deck during the greater part of the day ■ not that there was much for us to look at, for during our passage across to Japan no vessel save our own was visible: trade has not vet dotted the ocean in these regions with ships, as is the case over the greater part of the world, neither did any necessity exist for a large naval fleet to scour these waters. Thus, as we sped along, there was in reality very little to attract our attention; yet all was not barren. On the 17th of the month, when about midway between Fou Chansoo, on the coast of China, and the point of the Corea, noted on charts as BasiFs Bay, we were not a little surprised to find the vessel passing through lines of what was evidently a species of gulf weed. In general appearance it was but slightly different from Sargossa weed j like it, it oceurred in lines which stretched at intervals along the surface of the sea in a direction nearly north and south. These lines were not continuous; they were frequently interrupted, and the intervals between the different ones were much greater than what is the case in the neighbourhood of the western islands. The paucity of birds, either on the coast or inland in China, has already been remarked upon. From the time that we left the Gulf of Pecheli, until we reached Japan, except on one occasion, we saw none of the feathered tribes; this occasion happened on the 19th, when we were off the island of Quelpart: a brisk gale had shortly before set in, the force of which had no doubt swept some of the land birds to greater or smaller distance from the shore : one of these, a kite, crossed our course; it had in all probability been blown away, either from Japan or the southern part of the Corea, and from the point at which we saw the creature, not a less distance than three hundred miles lay between it and the nearest point of land in the direction in which it was proceeding; that is, the neighbourhood of the mouth of the Yangtse Kiang.