The principal town is Tinghae, well known as the place twice taken by the English troops during the last war. It is but small, compared with any of the other five ports where foreigners are now trading: the walls are not more than three miles in circumference, and the suburbs not very extensive. When I was there, the island was in the hands of the English, being retained by them until 1846, under the treaty of Nanking, and Tinghae was of course the head quarters of the troops: we had also military stations at Sing-kong and Sing-kie-mun, the western and eastern parts of the island. Major-General Sir James Schoedde, the officer in command, to whom I had letters from Lord Stanley, very kindly procured me quarters in a house within the walls, and I immediately commenced operations. I was fortunate in becoming acquainted with Dr. Maxwell, of the 2d Madras native infantry, who was stationed there. This gentleman, an ardent lover of botanical pursuits, had been most indefatigable in his researches, and was consequently able to give me much valuable information. He had also made drawings of all the more striking plants which he had met with on the island, and I was thus at once put in possession of information which it would have taken me some months to acquire in any other way.
During two years from this date (Nov. 1843), I had frequent opportunities of visiting Chusan, at all seasons of the year, and was consequently enabled to gain a perfect knowledge of the soil, productions, and flora of the island. The soil of the hills is a rich gravelly loam; in the valleys it is more stiff, from having less vegetable matter mixed with it, and from being almost continually under water. The rocks of granite, however, of the same kind as those noticed on the barren southern hills, exist here also; and although they are generally covered with soil and vegetation, they have doubtless been at some former time as bleak and barren as their southern neighbours.
All the valleys and hill-sides are under cultivation; paddy is the principal crop on the low grounds, and sweet potatoes on the hills. In the spring and early summer months, crops of wheat, barley, beans, peas and maize are grown on the hilly and rising grounds, the low paddy land being too wet for such crops. Cotton is also grown on the island, but the quantity is inconsiderable it is only for the home use of the small farmers on whose land it grows. There is a species of _Urtica_, both wild and cultivated, which grows about three or four feet in height, and produces a strong fibre in the bark, which is prepared by the natives, and sold for the purpose of making ropes and cables. Another strong fibre is obtained from the bracts of a palm-tree cultivated on the hill-sides of Chusan, as well as in similar situations all over the province of Chekiang. These articles answer the purposes to which they are applied extremely well; but the rope made from the Manila hemp is of much greater strength and durability. From the bracts of this same palm the natives of the north make what they call a _So-e_, or garment of leaves, and a hat of the same material, which they put on during rainy weather; and although they look comical enough in the dress, still it is an excellent protection from wind and rain. In the south of China the _So-e_ is made from the leaves of the bamboo and other broad-leaved grasses.