MAHOMMEDANISM IN CENTRAL CHINA, The Ying, which joins the Huai in the north of Anhui, is of course a much smaller river but of good and constant depth, though at this season (December) the water is at. its lowest. The trafic is also smaller, being confined largely to in and salt transport. The country is and the soil sandy. The banks of the river are almost perpendicular and rise now fully twenty feet above water level. Head winds are the order of the day, and we drag a weary course past Yingshanghsien and Yingchoufu (58! LIF) reaching T'aiho (ACAI) at a date long subse-sequent to that on which we had hoped to finish our journey.
T'aiho is a neat little country town not a great distance from the Honan border. It lies about a mile from the river bank and has no shipping interest of any importance, but its shops are comparatively numerous and its trade thriving. Its streets are broader than those of southern cities, but not so broad as those of more northern ones, It lies on that border line between coolie and cart traffic which might be drawn across China say from Ts'inchou in Kansu, through Hanchung and Hsingan in Shensi, Laihokou and Fanch'eng in Hupeh, on to Paihohsien in Anhui. Roughly speaking the Tsinling marks the division, to the south men and chairs, to the north' horses and carts, The population of T'aiho is largely Mahommedan though the Chinese (jin Hanren, as they call themselves) claim to preponderate. Perhaps the statement that
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.