The spring of 1922 has found Chengtu more peaceful and apparently more prosperous than for some years past.
The spring crops of wheat, hemp, and tobacco were pronounced good, while vegetable matter abounded on the great plains. The outlying cities and towns were less molested by robbers, and the political situation was more healthful and steady than usual.
The business atmosphere was bracing. During the past few years, new arcades have been built up, adding hundreds of shops. During the disturbances may were closed, now a vacant shop is rare These shops contain a Jlarge assortment of imported goods, bric-a-prac, woollen goods, gorges, ete. cotton goods, plain and fancy, as well as native. silks, and piece goods. No city on the upper river has such a splendid display of things foreign, as in add nto imported goods, there is " fine showing of native products after foreign patterns, especially in piece goods, leather goods. furniture, rugs and metals. It only needs a demand to bring into the market, every article that even foreigners would wish for, in every department of private life. Where in earlier years, foreign residents hound for Chengtu felt it necessary to purchase everything, either in the homeland or Shanghai, and thus on their journey westward be troubled with one or two hundred packages. which luckily the steamors carried free as baggage to Ichang, now, if they and with their trunks, they ara able to set up a home that is very comfortable, and find on the market fresh milk, sugar, flour, meats, nuts and a variety of vegetables, sufficient for healthy living.
The spirit of enterprise, that fills the Chengtu merchants is evidenced by the fact that notwithstanding the tremendous handicap they are under in transporting goods from Shanghai—as freight rates if they use steamers from Ichang to Chungking, or robber rates if they use Chinese junks, yet they keep their agents in Shanghai and have a constant flow of goods westward.
Exacrions ox Junks.
The exactions made upon junks during their two to three months journey westward, by military leaders, by civil magistrates, by self-constituted authorities, brigands, etc.; the hold-ups, when for days or weeks 40 or 50 men must be fed, while waiting at some dangerous rapid, or for the dispersion of a band of ruffians in the gorges; the partial or total wreck frequency—al]l_ these would be sufficient to discourage the most enterprising. Yet these merchants continue to do business and apparently thrive. During the high water the current is swift and down river crafts can make 100 miles a day. Forty miles south of Chéngtu, the Fu river enters the Min, and 60 miles southward the Min enters the Tong and the Ya rivers. These combined make a wide, swift river from Kiating to Suifu. Kiating is considered at the present time as the head of steamer navigation, though, to date, only war vessels have made the ascent. Merchant steamers are planning to make regular trips. Kiating is very pleasantly situated and as the Tong and Ya rivers drain extensive territories, rich in mineral, timber, medicines, ete. and as they are the outlets for produce that ~vosses the high passes from Tashienlu and the farther west, and ye navigable by strongly constructed bamboo rafts, Kiating should become an important commercial city, as well as an objective for tourists, as that most noted sacred mountain, with its white wax industry, Mount Omei, is within easy reach.
Apart from one or two rapids the Min river between Kiating and Suifu presents no serious obstruction to steamer navigation, and once the route is opened, will no doubt become popular for at least six or seven months in the year.
At Suifu the Min river joins the Yangtze. whose splendid volume ai water flows eastward to Luchow and Chungking, past several important cities. Westward from Suifu on the Yangtze are rani ds that may prohibit steamer tion in that direction. Seve boats specially built are able to tap the upper reaches of this great river and will in time bring eastward the vast mineral wealth that is hidden in the mountains, which even now, use the spring freshets, to scatter their yellow grains in the gravelly deposits of the middle yangtze.
Between Chungking, Luchow and Suifu a distance of over 200 miles, small steamers are running quite regularly. The city of Luchow is' an important salt centre, owing to its close proximity to Tszeliutsing. This city is now undergoing a marked transformation. General Yang proved himself a good soldier in the last struggle between © the Yunnanese: and Szechuanese. Today his ability as an administrator becoming equally prominent. Twenty years ago a young Official was given a free hand to clean up Chengtu. The transformation of junks which occur with terrible'made in a few years was marvel-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.