to the shores, each one with its family of small traders, who aid the general uproar and discord by raising their voices in praise of their wares. Such are the impressions that are apt to fill the eye and the ear of the beholder as he gazes upon a river-side population and its immediate surroundings."

Hoo-nan-"south of the lakes "-is a hilly province, the only level land being that which surrounds the Toong-ting Lake (p. 28), though this is in the summer covered by

water.

It is, however, intersected by rivers, and tea and other products are produced in great abundance, while the whole province may be aptly described as one immense anthracitic and bituminous coal field. Iron and lead are among its mineral deposits, and the timber rafts, dotted with huts, which the voyager upon the Yang-tse-kiang must be familiar with, are among the most noted wealth of the province. These rafts, indeed, are so thickly studded with temporary dwellings as to look like floating villages. By-and-by, as the great cities are reached, they are broken up for sale. The owners, meantime, transfer their huts to the river bank, and there remain until their cargo is disposed of. Last of all, they sell their huts, and then start for the mountains

to cut down another supply of timber, and pilot it south in the manner they and their ancestors may have been doing for centuries perhaps.

Shen-se-not to be confounded with the neighbouring province of Shan-se (p. 33) -is bounded on the north by the Great Wall, and before the Mahommedan rebellion, which laid so many cities and districts waste, was a prosperous region. Se-gan-foo, its capital, was for nearly 2,000 years the metropolis of China; and the basin of the Wei River, which lies to the north of the range of mountains which divides the province in two, is so situated as in some respects to constitute it the key of the Empire. For, shut off from the rest of China by the Yellow River on the east, and on the south by the range of mountain mentioned, this valley is on the highroad to Central Asia, and hence in the possession of an enemy communication with the Turkestan and other colonies in that direction would be entirely cut off. This accounts for the eagerness with which the province has, during all the revolutions of China, been retained by the Government for the time being, and the energy with which invaders and rebels have tried to possess themselves of it. To this day its capital city is well fortified, and contrary to the rule in China, the fortifications-enclosing an area of six square miles are kept in good repair, so that the Mahommedan rebels, though they invested it closely for two years, were unable to capture it. From it roads branch off in every direction, and render Se-gan-foo an important entrepot of trade, though, like the province, which is purely an agricultural one, it produces nothing whatever for the foreign market.

Kansu, in the north-west corner of China proper, is cut off from Mongolia by the Great Wall, though the jurisdiction of its governor extends over the Desert of Gobi to the borders of the Central Asiatic territory of Dsanguria. It is mountainous and sandy in character, and with the exception of a large agricultural community settled to the west of the Yellow River, its inhabitants are largely mixed with Mongols. The mountains, like those of Shan-se and Shen-se, abound in minerals-gold, silver, and copper, which, in the days to come, are destined to play a great part in the development of the oldest, yet newest, of the kingdoms of the world.

Se-chuen (also written Sze-chuen, or Szetchouan) is one of the largest provinces of China, and, what does not necessarily follow, it is also one of the richest. Its varied surface-hills, mountains, valleys, and plains-yields an equally varied supply of products suitable for export, and its soil is bountifully supplied with coal and iron, as well as copper and sulphur to a smaller extent. In addition, it is one of the chief of the silkgrowing districts of China, and exports an inferior quality of opium to other provinces, as well as white wax, which, in spite of the corrupt mandarins winking at the former traffic, is a more legitimate article of commerce. Tobacco is also largely grown, and Se-chuen is the only province in which the custom of smoking cigars is indigenous. Salt is made from brine raised from wells, and in one district petroleum is struck when a depth of from 1,800 to 2,000 feet is reached. Sugar, tung oil, barley, wheat, Indian corn, beans, rice, potatoes, &c., are among the other crops of this favoured region. Copper is smelted to the extent of 500 or 600 tons per annum, and sold at a price fixed by Government to certain concessionnaires, who, in their turn, pay a royalty to the Crown. The coal-mines may be seen all along the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang

which flows-a tortuous highway for commerce-through the province; but the method of working them is very defective.

Quang-tung, or "Canton," as the name has been Anglified, is one of the provinces of China which we know best, and the one which at one time was our almost sole source of information about the country. Its characteristics are well-wooded highlands and alluvial lands, especially towards the sea-board, near the mouth of the Pearl River (p. 61), which forms one of many inlets to the interior. The Quang-tung plain is indeed formed by the denudation of the highlands. This river has brought down soil and shoaled up the sea, and thus gradually turned it into dry land. At the present day it is intersected by a multitude of streams and lagoons, so that, Mr. Thomson remarks, it is difficult to say which is the true navigable channel. The delta lies so low that it cannot be descried from seaward until vessels get close in shore; but it is exceedingly fertile, and is occupied in every available foot for the careful cultivation of sugar, rice, tobacco, the mulberry tree, and kitchen vegetables. The city of Fatshan, near which Keppel destroyed the Chinese fleet during the "Opium War," is the Sheffield of China, but the blades produced are not very remarkable either for keenness of edge, temper, or other qualities. Silk, tea, cassia twigs and buds, matting, fire-crackers, sugar, and palm-leaf fans-the last of which are sent to New York alone to the extent of from four to five millions per annum-form the principal articles of export. Coal abounds, but, as in the case of the iron manufactures, none of it is sent out of the country. Off the coast lie many islands, such as Hainan, which is about 100 miles long, and not much less in breadth, and is very mountainous, except in the north, where there is a plain of some extent. This island possesses gold and other riches, some of which reach the cities of Canton and Swatow (p. 37), the treaty ports of the province, though, since the opening of Kien-chow, on the northern coast of Hainan, some of the island trade has been diverted in that direction (pp. 26, 28).

Quang-si is a less important province, mountainous in the south and east, but level or hilly in the north, and is intersected by the Si-kiang and the Kwei-kiang, or Cinnamon River. On the mountains large-sized timber is reared, lower down the all-important bamboos, and in the fertile valleys the usual food staples. On the hot humid marsh-lands of the south rice is raised, but the people suffer from the relaxing character of the climate.

Quei-chow is a smaller and even more thinly populated province-that is, speaking of the population from the Chinese standpoint, which must always be comparative, for it has really more inhabitants than all the Australian colonies put together, and about three times the number the United States possessed when they began the world for themselves. -in other words, it has about 6,000,000. It is, with the exception of the plains in the central and northern regions, mountainous, and has been for long in a chronic state of disturbance, owing to the manner in which the aboriginal tribes of Meaou-tze, who are the original owners of the soil, have been maltreated by the Chinese officials. The Yun-nan rebellion also reached some of the south-western districts, and, in addition, the unhealthiness of the climate has almost ruined the trade of this part of the empire. Its agriculture is limited, but its mines of copper, silver, and lead are valuable, and its quicksilver can compete in quality and quantity with that of any part of the world. Realgar, orpiment, and coal are also shipped, and silk forms a regular article of commerce.

Yun-nan is a large but thinly-peopled province, consisting of plains, with valleys, and in the north it is broken up by mountains, and everywhere intersected by large rivers and lakes. The province lies along the frontiers of Tibet and Burmah, and accordingly it has been proposed to open up a trade route between India and China by way of the Brahmapootra and Yang-tse-kiang, the space between the two rivers to be connected by a road 250 miles long. But up to date this great work has not been achieved, although for ages there have existed important trade routes between China and the neighbouring countries passing through this province,* and along which considerable commerce passes. Gold, tin, silver, lead, zinc, copper, precious stones, &c., are all found; and in common with silk, musk, gum, and ivory, form articles of export, while the tea of southern Yun-nan is appreciated throughout the empire. The opium is, however, of very poor quality. Altogether, though the country is rich, it is little developed, and, owing to the recently crushed Panthay or Mohammedan rebellion, is not likely for a time to recover even the limited prosperity which it formerly enjoyed.

Shing-king-not always included among the Chinese provinces, as it is properly the government of Southern Mantchuria-though mostly mountainous, with many plains, is extremely fertile, but in the vicinity of the sea covered with a saline exudation which renders all efforts at culture hopeless. In the summer the country suffers great heat, in the winter extreme cold; but the climate is healthy, and to an Englishman homelike, the English trees and shrubs growing well, and the general facies and scenery being rather European than Asiatic, or, in other words, like the Amoor country which adjoins it. Mr. Williamson describes the plains as monotonous, but pleasant, owing to the numerous villages embosomed in foliage, and surrounded by well-cultivated fields, in which is heard the crack of the ploughman's whip, or the joyous song carolled forth by peasants on whom the decrees of Pekin sit but lightly. The hill country is, however, extremely picturesque. Ever-changing views, torrents, and fountains, varied and abounding vegetation, flocks of black cattle grazing on the hill-sides, goats perched on the overhanging crags, horses, asses, and sheep on the less elevated regions, numerous well-built hamlets everywhere, enliven the scene; while a clear blue canopy overspreading all, and fine bracing air, make the country delightful to the traveller." Wheat, barley, millet, oats, maize, cotton, indigo, and tobacco are its crops; but coal, iron, and gold, though little worked, exist. It is so rapidly being settled, and in many respects is so like the rest of China, that we have preferred to treat it here rather under the head of the outlying parts of the Empire.

It thus appears that there is really little of anything in Europe which China needs or cannot produce. Its coal and iron are inexhaustible, but the former is worked but slightly, lest-so the professors of Feng-shui or geomancy "declare the "plain of the earth" should capsize by the balance being destroyed when the loads of fuel are extracted, while the ores are, perhaps on that account, but little smelted, and in most places only by wood. No land has a more magnificent soil, or one in which art does more for nature. The great "loess" plain, extending over an area of 250,000 square miles, comprises * Anderson: "Mandalay to Momien" (1876); Richthofen: "China: Ergebnisse eigener Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien" (1877-8), &c.