The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1878-03-30
The Great River of China.
ndent writes from Hankow,

"A correspondent writes from HankoW,
China, to the New York Tunes:
The regular navigation of the Yang
tse, kiang by steam is an affair of the
last fifteen years, and was originally an
American enterprise. The river is well
adapted to steam navigation, rs it is one
OF the largest streams in the world. The
Amazon holds the first place, the Missis-
slppi the second, and the Yang-tse the
third. There are many persons who
think the Yang tse should be placed
before the Mississippi rather than after
it, as they contend that it's volume is
greater, | am almost inclined to side
with them; and at all events shall de-
cline to say that they are not correct. |
am familiar with. the Mississippi from
st. Louis to New Orleans, and during
my voyage up the Yang-tse have been
trying to determine the question of rela-
tive size. Certainly fluvial pride of
China looks as large as our own, and APP
pears to carry as great a volume of water.
In the lower part of its course it spreads
out to great width and forms broad
estuary for more than one hundred miles.
Here at Hankow, SIX hundred and odd
miles from the sea, it equals the Missis-
sippi at Natchez or Vicksburg, and its
current is said by steamboat captains to
be only a little less than four miles an
hour. Yesterday l took Chinese sam
pan to cross from Hankow to Wochang,
the city on the southern bank, and oppo-
site 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 full mile
in the downward drift in crossing where
the river was about mile and quarter
in width. As you look down upon the
Yang-tse from the pagoda at Wo-chang
or from the summit of the hill that dom
inmates Hankow, you are profoundly
impressed with its magnitude, and are
not surprised that the Chinese generally
calledit 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 disappoints 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
river, and the far-famed Silver Island
rises in view. Islands in md-stream, a
steep hill of rock, perhaps three hundred
feet high, crowned with a pagoda and
covered from base to summit with II ices
and bushes and rich grass on which sum
warehouses; and more substantial dwell
ings are here and there stippled. A little
distance beyond we have Vicksburg
or Memphis spread over a range Of
undulated hills and backed by a loftiei
range that givesa serratedhorizon against
the misty blue sky. But its name is not
Vioksburg or Memphis; it is Chinkiang,
and we know from the circulated wall
that surrounds it, the pagodas that rise
above it, and the junks and sampans al
its water front that the city is Chinese
and not American.