Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-03-15
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sac ~reaAAtFeF Of China.
A correspondent writes from Han.
kow, China, to the New York
Times:
"The regular navigation Of the
Iang-tse-K iang by steam is an affair
of the last fifteen years, and was
originally an American enterprise.
The river is well adapted to steam
navigation, and it is one of the
largest. streams i 1.-THE world. The
Amazon holds the; frst.place. the
Mississippi the second. and the
Yang-tse the third. There are
many persons who think the Yang
tse should be placed before the Mis-
sissippi rather than after it, as they
contend that its volume is greater.
l am almost inclined to side with
them; aud at all events shall de-
cline to say that they are not cor
rect. / am familiar with the Mis-
sisslppi from st. Louis to New Or
leans, and during my voyage up the
Yang-tse | have been trying to de-
termine the question of relative
size. Certainly the fuyial pride of
China looks as large as our own,
and appears to carry as great a vol
ume of water. In the lower part
of its course it spreads out to a
great width and forms a broad es-
tuary for more than one hundred
miles. Here, at Hankow, six hun
dred and odd miles from the sea. it
equals the Mississippi at Natchez
or Vicksburg, and its current is
said by steamboat captains to be
only a 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 reaching the opposite
shore they pulled up stream where
the current was slight. We lost a
full mile in the downward drift, in
crossing where the river was about
a mile and a quarter in width. AS
you look upon the Yang-tse from
the pagoda and Wo-chang, or from
the summit of the hill that domi-
mates Hankow, you are profoundly
impressed with its magnitude, and
are not surprised that the Chinese
generally called it Ta-Kiang-i. e.,
Great River
"The fiat, red-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 disap-
points the traveller who had looked
for a succession of villages and a
dense population the entire dis
lance along the river. One hundred
and fifty miles from its mouth the
estuary Of the Yang-tse contracts
to a river, and the far-famed Silver
Island rises in view. Islands in
mid stream, a steep hill Of rock,
perhaps three hundred feet high,
crowned with a pagoda and covered
from base to summit with trees and
bushes and rich grass on which
summer-houses and more substan-
tial dwellings are here and there
stippled. A little distance beyond
we have a Vicksburg or a Memphis
spread over a range of uudulated
bills and backed by a loftier range
that gives a serrated horizon
against the misty blue sky. But
its name is not Vicksburg or Mem
phis; it is Chinkiang, and we know
from the circulated wall that sur
rounds it, the pagodas that rise
above it, and the iunks and sam
pans at its water front that the CITY
is Chinese and not American"