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Trunk lines could be constructed for this purpose without any difficulty. They would pass along the old trade tracks, and would encounter populous cities the whole way. Through eastern Shansi and Honan, for example, to Hangchow on the Yangtse; thence to the Si Kiang and Canton; such lines would be shafts driven through the heart of the Middle Kingdom, connecting the North and the South.
Wherever foreigners congregate, but more especially at Shanghai and up the Yangtse, the house-boat, combining comfort, convenience and fair sailing powers, is a favourite means of getting about on shooting trips and picnics, and altogether forms an important feature of the pleasant existence which we lead in the Far East.
During my stay in Chungking I frequently met the French Consul "en commission," Monsieur Haas, who had lately arrived on a diplomatic mission, which was invested with much secrecy. It was believed to have for its object the diversion of the trade of Szechuen from its natural channel, the Yangtse River, southward through Yunnan province to Tonquin. Success need not be feared to attend his mission.
For the first time we learned that Tientsin has had a siege and bombardment of its own; that all Manchuria is in flames; that the Yangtse Valley has been trembling on the brink of rebellion; that Tientsin city has at last been captured by European troops and a provisional government firmly established; and that many of the high Chinese officials have committed suicide in many parts of China.
Large numbers of the Fuchou junks were moored here, which differ in construction from all other junks on the river Yangtse in having their great sterns twisted or wrung a quarter round to starboard, and in being steered by an immense stern sweep, and not by the balanced rudder of an ordinary junk. The following day, after a long day's work, we moored beyond the town of Chang-show-hsien.
They overran the Yangtse Valley, invaded twelve of the richest provinces, seized six hundred cities and towns, and put an end to twenty million people in the space of twelve years by fire, sword, and famine. To this bloody expedition Hung Sew Tseuen, a master of modern euphemism, gave the name of Crusade of the Great Peace.
Chungking is an enormously rich city. It is built at the junction of the Little River and the Yangtse, and is, from its position, the great river port of the province of Szechuen. Water-ways stretch from here an immense distance inland. The Little River is little only in comparison with the Yangtse, and in any other country would be regarded as a mighty inland river.
The Inland Missionary and a Brother from the American Baptist Mission kindly came with me for the first thirteen miles. My route lay west on the north bank of the Yangtse, but later, after crossing the Yangtse, would be nearly south to Chaotong.
The Tai-ping rebellion, which had begun in the south some three years earlier , had established its capital at Nanking, on the Yangtse River, and had sent its "long-haired" rebels north on an expedition of conquest, the ultimate aim of which was Peking.
Thus the Euphrates and Tigris of Mesopotamia, the Ganges and Indus of India, and the Hoang and Yangtse of China, were the creators of history; but this is true in Africa only of the Nile. All the other rivers have been impediments instead of helpful factors in the formidable task of exploration and development.
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