3-085-925 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Chinese Question: Ting-Hae, Island of Chusan, 1898. 'War-Junk Under Weigh. H.M.S. Hart. From a Sketch by Surgeon T. T. Jeans, R.N., H.M.S. "Immortalité". This is the principal town of the Chusan Archipelago, the owners of which hold the key of the Yangtse River and its immensely fertile watershed. At the time this Drawing was made the "Centurion", "Immortalité", "Alacrity", "Algerine", "Hart" and "Handy" were at anchor in the bay. Just to the right and underneath the Joss House Hill are the graves of many officers and men of the 58th and other regiments who fell during the assaults on the town in 1840-41, or died during the occupation of the island by British forces for the next five years. The Chinese loan contract with the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank, negotiated by Sir C. Macdonald, the British Ambassador, in consideration for the opening of the Yangtse-Kiang and other rivers of the interior of China to European commerce, and the extension of the Burma railway, was signed at Peking on the last day of February. But...Russia demands...a perpetual lease of Port Arthur and Talien-Wan, with a railway through Manchuria, while she is intending greatly to augment her military forces in Eastern Siberia.'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.