Whampoa: Ships on the Shore.

Hongkong,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Though published in China/Hong Kong,the text is in English throughout.] NFINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn,no price-clip - absence of publisher's price. Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,wrap-around colour pictorial artwork illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no major nicks or tears present.Minimal bumping with reciprocal creasing to head of spine/backstrip and to both top corners too.Top edge lightly aged/dust-soiled, fore-edge brighter and cleaner; contents bright,tight and near pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corner tips - an unread copy? Top,yellow+red headband partially unglued,but still in situ,but loose.Sharp-cornered,bright, clean,brown leather-textured (rexine?) hardcover binding, with immaculate,similar textured dark brown endpapers. CHINA,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,v-xiiipp+3-266pp [paginated] includes contents+illus lists/tables,a foreword, acknowledgements,Pts I-IX comprising 49 chapters+ conclusion,profuse b/w (majority)+colour illus/ photographs throughout the text and the book,a bibliography and an index; plus [unpaginated] half-title+ title pages,and 3 b/w maps at front.
The dw/dj illustration,by an unknown Chinese artist,done in 1845,apparently commissioned,to record the visit to Whampoa of the Lady Mary Wood,the P.& O.'s first iron-hulled steamship to come to China.Painted black,she is seen getting up steam in the central roads at Whampoa. Her voyage marked the start of a fortnightly mail service between Britain and Hongkong which had great influence on the development of trade in the Far East.
The painting records the moment from which the Hongkong & Whampoa Dock Company traditionally dates its antecedents.
The British acquired their possessions "in a fit of absence of mind".Few things demonstrate this better than the story of Hongkong's docks, told here for the first time.
For twenty years Hongkong was an international port,and there were no docks.Ships coming to Hongkong docked at Whampoa,the port of Canton, until,at last,a solitary individual built the first dock in Hongkong.Then - but very gradually - a company came into being,the Hongkong & Whampoa Dock Company.
Its existence revolutionized Hongkong.
Hitherto an adjunct and poor relation of India - as the author puts it,"tail end of almost everything and head of very little" - it suddenly became a place of its own.This is an account of how it happened.
But,this is more than just the story of the docks and the company that built them.
It is an account of HongKong itself,and why it exists today as the seventh largest port in the world.It is portrayal of East and West and how they came together and work together.It is a tale of struggles,successes and disappointments,in-fighting for power,political machinations,company intrigues,and life in one of the most exciting cities in the world.
Above all,it is a story of the people of many races who had faith in that "barren rock",and who made the Dock Company what it is today.
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