With the usual feeling of relief and satisfaction we saw our sail hoisted and Chinkiang gradually falling behind us, last our journey has begun and we are actually settled in what is to be our home fora month, A fair wind carries us easily to Kuachow, giving us a parting impetus as we swing quickly round into the crowded mouth of the Canal, A few hours bring us to Yangchow, one of the great cities of China. "oust appeare that the net result of the fire yests thet have pamed slice we lust visited it is not gain but loss, An air of quietness, of which we have no recollect both in the city and along the banks of the riv Is China making progress? Or is progression tle order of the day? And is not the lowest estimate of the population unate? Whilst on the one hand Wuchang and Nanking may count their candidates at the provincial examinations by the myriad, on the other only about two thousand presented themselves at Lanchou in 1888 from the two provinces Kansu and Singkiang.
Starting again we make but slow progress against the heavy current which seta strongly toward the eastern branches of the Canal. "A whole network of these covers the country from Yangchow to North Tree—no mean streens, for they float the immense sult junks that congregate at Shiherwei. A few miles beyond Yangchow, new country to the writer, the Canal enters the lake district. The rainy season la just over, #0 there is plenty of water—more than in former years, say the boatmen. - Still, there are no signs of serious floods—no houses immediately surrounded by water, but there is a frequent appearance as of flooded fields in which trees, banks, and so forth are isolated. The trafic is not heavy, when compared with that in the Lower Han from Hankow to Lavhokow; still, it is by no means small or unimportant.
After Yangchow the first city is Kaoyu, hundred Ni uway. It has been a large Its walls are extensive. But uow it is a poor place, with not one respectable shop on its long' main street; a few atolls and some dingy shops of the huckster type supple the simple wants of ite inhabitants. In all probability it was a by on the route of the Long Barred Rebels prosperous city thirty years ayo, Lut as ib
it has shared the fate of many anoth city in China, We observed no such wretchedness in Taichow, Rukao or any other city between Yangchow and North Tree whilst travelling in that district, There all was briskness and activity, here only dullness and passivity, even wore marked than that which" charac-rises so many cities in Shansi, Shensi and Kansu. In these provinces whilst the cities themselves have seldom recovered from the Mahommedan devastation of twenty years ago, trade has in most cases been resumed in their suburbs, outside the east, west, north or south gate as the case may be. Weinanhsien near Singanfu, where the Mubhommedan rebel-Yien began, is, or rather has been in its day, quite a large city, say five li from the east to the west gate. Now it contains but half a dozen houses and its yamen, All the trade, shops and inns, is in the west suburb, And so with other cities, Singan,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.