Page 312 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

298.

Olyphant & Co. purchased a brig in late 1834 from James P.
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Sturgis for the purpose of sending missionaries along the coast.

In the autumn of 193 5 Medhurst and Stevens departed on the

brig with a cargo of books for a trip up the coast. They

sailed along the provinces of Kwangtung and Fukien, past the port

of Amoy, to the mouth of Min-Kiang (Min River). Foochow, the

provincial capital of Fukien, lay inside the mouth of this river.

The missionaries sailed up the Min, anchoring whenever approached

by curious Chinese. They passed out tracts while taking notes

on the area bordering the river. Describing the river and its

walled-in towns (twenty-six altogether) Q Stevens exclaimed:
"Rarely have mine eyes seen so varied and lovely, and at the same

time to extensive, a tract, as the valley of the Min. 1 1 The river
1 1
flowed between bold, high, and romantic hills 11 , the lower ones

serving as terraces for Chinese farmers. "On these the yellow

barley and wheat were waving over our heads; here and there a

laborer, with a bundle of the grain which he had reaped on his

shoulder, was bringing it down the hill to thrash it out. Orange,

lemon, or mulberry groves, .sometimes shaded a narrow strip
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along the banks, half concealing the cottages of the inhabitants.11

22
Letter, W.C. Hunter to S. Russell, Dec. 23, 1834,
Litrary of Congress, Russell & Co. MSS. Hunter believed that
Olyphant & Co. also h9pGd to expand_its trade along the coast.
He wrote that "they iOlyphant & Co.:./ had in contemplation, the
introduction of Knowledge & Christianity into China--through the
medium of Broad Cloths and Long Ells. 11
23
Missionary Herald, XXXII, 2 (February 1836), 78-79.