Grand Canal between Chinkiang and Tsingkiangpu has _recently been cut by a dam pengwan and another near Ki. shou.
This has been done in order to drain the canal for a distance of 10 miles, so that it may be broad. ened and deepened.—Boats often got crowded together in this narrow portion vf the canal and trafic was retarded and wt times stopped. The launches and barge would often scrape bottom, so their speed was reduced to a minimum. Work has aieady begun and as you walk along the bank you can see crowds of people digging the-dirt and carrying up the sides of the canal. The women with their oddly shaped shovels spade up the dirt and place it on frames made of twisted rice straw and a curved stick. And the. men carry two of these frames at 2 time up the steep sides of the bank. These workers come from the surrounding country, and many one too far away to go to the canal and return the same day, so they have dug holes in the bank, covered them: with mats supported on bamboo poles, and inhabit these huts, which lock more like caves than houses.
ors from Chinkiang must their boats at Mapengwan amd xo overland for about ten miles to the upper dam. where they. will find the launch, which leaves every evening for Tsingkiangpu, arriving there carly the following' morning. The first' of the third Chinese month, Apvil 16, has been set as thes 4 when the work should be finished and through traffic resumed, The sluice some 10 miles above Tsingkiangpu, which was destroyed a couple of years ago during the big flood, is being permanently rebuilt. Mr. La American engineer, is supe)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.