The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1878-06-07
The Great River of China.

me- N1EO&LG u ANCE u OAAIAASAs
A correspondent writes from
Mankow, China, to the New York
Times:
The regular navigation of the
Yangtse-Kiang by steam is an affair
of the last fifteen years, and was
originally an American enterprise.
Tie river is well adapted to steam
navigation, as it is one of the lar
gest streams in the world. The
Amazon holds the first place, the
Mississippi the second, and the
Yang-tse should be placed before
the Mississippi rather than after 1T,
as they contend that its volume is
greater. 1 am most inclined to side
with them; and at all events shall
decline to say that they are not COR
rect. am familiar with the Mis-
sissippi from st. Louis to New Or
leans, and during my voyage up
the Yang-tse have been trying to
determine the question of relative
size. Certainly the fiuvial pride of
China looks as large as our own,
and appears to carry as great a
volume of water. In the lower
part of it's course it spreads out to a
great width and forms q broad es
tuary for more than one hundred
miles. Here, at HankoW, six humid
red and odd miles from the sea, it
equals the Mississippi at Matches or
Vicksburg, and it's current is said
by steamboat captains to be only
little less than four miles an hour.
yesterday took a Chinese sampan
to cross from Hankow to Wochang,
the city on the southern bank, and
opposite to HankoW on the northern.
had two boatmen, and they rowed
fast and well. They made straight
across the stream, allowing the boat
to drift with the river, and on reach
ing the opposite shore they pulled
up stream where the current was
slight. We lost q full mile in the
downward drift in crossing where
the river was about a mile and a
quarter wide. AS you look down
upon the Ysnd-tse from the pagoda
at Wo-chang or from the summit of
the hill that dominates Hankow,
you are profoundly impressed with
it's magnitude, and are not surprised
that the Chinese generally called it
Ta-Kiang-i. e., Great River.
'The fiat, reed-grown banks of
the first hundred miles of the Yang
tse forcibly remind you of the
swamps of the lower Mississippi /;
| the readiness continues through
much of the second and even the
third hundred miles, and disappoint
the traveller who had looked for a
succession of villages and dense
population the entire distance along
the river. One hundred and fifty
miles from its mouth the estuary of
the Yang-tse contracts to q river,
and the far-famed Silver island RI
ses in view. Islands in mid-stream,
steep hill of rock, perhaps three
hundred feet high, crowned with a
pagoda and covered from base to
summit with trees and bushes and
punches of rich grass on which sum-
mer houses and more substantial
dwellings are here and there stip-
pied. A little distance beyond we
have Vicksburg or a Memphis
spread over a range of undulated
hills and backed by loftier range
that gives q serrated horizon against
the misty blue sky. But its name
is not Vicksburg or Memphis it is
Chinklang, and we know from the
4 circulated w9ll that surrounds it,
the pago0as that rise above it, and
the junks and sampans at its water
front that the city is Chinese and
not American"