1930s China through American eyes

Unloading tea at Hankow, the great tea market of interior China

Hankow (Hankou), with a population of about 1.5 million is China's second largest city. It has an excellent situation on the Yangtze Kiang (Yangtze River), the greatest river in Eastern Asia. Large steam vessels can sail up the Yangtze as far as Hankow. There is therefore a large transfer of goods from one class of ship to another at Hankow. With large swarms of hard-working Chinese farmers busily at work every day in the year all along the vast region drained by the Yangtze River, you can form some idea of what a tremendous amount of produce is shipped up and down its waters. There are more boats on the Yangtze than on any other body of water in the world, not excluding the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Long the center of the tea trade, many other products are also shipped through Hankow. The city has practically a monopoly on the Chinese tung oil used so extensively in the United States in the paint and varnish trade, and silk, beans, cereals, and cotton yarn are also brought here in large quantities for shipment.

[Photo provided to China Daily/Keystone View Company]