Heroic Rescue of Mercantile Marine Officers by the Navy jeut,-Commander Glenn F. Ho-the following article on the Wan-on the China Sta nti hsien, which he entitles "The Battle Wanhsien" to the "United States Naval Institute Proceedings."
'The Yangtze River is navigable for steam vessels for a distance of 1,600 miles from the sea. Hankow, {600 mites inland, can at all seasons of the year take ocean going' veerels, chang, 350 miles further inland, marks the upper limit of ordinary river steamers, Down. from this point, the river runs through a vast alluvial plain, in places almost as fickle and capicious as to channel as is our Mississippi, Immediately above Ichang, how: ever, ranges of high mountains begin and continue west through to Tibet. Through these ranges des cords the Yangtze in a series of wonderfully beautiful gorges and awe inspiring rapids. At the top ies Chungking, the vince Szechuan, 850 miles above Tchang.
Almost exactly half way between Tehang and Chungking is 'Wanhsien, an ancient, densely pops lated city' built on the side of Jong,' sloping hills, a bit above a decided These Szechuan wars at times are almost amusing in that they frequently resemble nothing s0 much a: chess games with the Tesser generals amd the various '89 pieces to be moved about il of the players. However, collisions are bound to result, 'a certain amount of actual fighting goes on, and an enormous expenditure of ammunition occurs. The money to support these operations, of course, comes dram the civilian section of the populace, most of it from the merchants. There is object to any for these wars other than the" aggrandizement of the generals concerned. None of them stay in power longer than a few months. Not only in Szechuan but throughout China, whenever one general by dint of superior ability or strategy rises above the rest of his Kind, all the others combine to produce his downfall, this regariess of whether or not they have been bitter enemies prior to this amalgam motion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.