Deep in mud and deluged with rain, Shanghai hardly presented on the 11th of February, 1861, an appearance to justify the appellation of “The Model Settlement,” which it, nevertheless, so well merits in the far East. Its princely mercantile residences and extensive Consular buildings looked desolate and dripping. The “Bund”—that promenade of which the residents may well be proud—was deserted, save by a chance pair or two of coolies trotting along under heavy burdens, with their monotonous “ho-ha, eh-ho.” The Chinese city was but dimly visible beyond the forest of junk-masts above the foreign shipping; and one would have almost doubted that an immense mass of human life existed at all in the dismal scene, but for occasional explosions of crackers, with which the natives were propitiating the new year, or “chin-chinning joss,” as it is familiarly called—for it was the second day of the first moon and holiday-time among the Celestials.

But on the river, notwithstanding the incessant rain, there were signs of movement apparent among the vessels of war lately arrived from the Gulf of Pecheli; and during the day one by one they dropped down stream, forming by evening a respectable little fleet at Woosung.

By nine on the following morning Vice-Admiral Sir James Hope had assembled his squadron outside the mouth of Woosung or Shanghai river; and at ten, each vessel being in its allotted position, the Expedition began to stem the muddy current of the great Yang-tsze.