AMOY, a-moi' (the local pronunciation of Ilai-mun, or Gallery Gate). A third-class Chi nese city on an island of the sanie name, in N. let. 24° 28', E. long. 118° 4', at the mouth of the Pei-chi or Dragon River, in the province of Fu kien (Map: China, E 5). The island of Hai mun is 40 miles in circumference. Being the chief city and port opposite Formosa, Amoy enjoys a large trade with that island. Amoy was early known as a place of Asiatic foreign commerce, and is the ancient centre of the tea trade. The Portuguese carne here in 1644; but were expelled for their cruelty and their vessels burned. The English traded here until 1730, when they were ordered to remove to Canton. Nearly all the tea brought to Boston Harbor by the British ships in 1773 was from Amoy, where the pronunciation of cha is "tea ;" but the trade in this herb is now nearly annihilated by the competition of Formosa Oolong and the heavy likin tax. The British treaty of 1842
made Amoy one of the five ports opened to for eign commerce, and the treaty of Tientsin in 1858 confirmed and extended the privilege. Amoy has long been the centre of flourishing Christian missions in Fukien. In 1882 a Brit ish engineer discovered coal and iron within 40 miles of Amoy, in an area of 50 square miles, and within 20 miles of water traffic. The harbor is large, safe, and picturesque, formed partly by Ku-lang-su Island, on which the houses of the foreigners, numbering nearly three hundred, are built, and by Kwe-moi (Gold en Harbor). The Japanese settlement, laid out in 1899, has several hundred inhabitants. There are three granite docks built by foreigners, an English church and club, and a daily news paper. One hundred thousand emigrants pass through Amoy every year to Singapore. Pop., 1897, 96,370.