The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-06-27

Yangste. The mouths of these are
filled with junks, and on them and the
canals, which cut up the land like a net,
you see the masts and sails of boats walk
ing, as it were, rapidly over the green
fields. Often there will be several
lines of these boats running parallel
with the river, their white sails grow
ing smaller in the distance, until they
form white specks upon the dim line
of the horizon. The cost of making
and keeping up this series of embank-
ments must be enormous. The Yang
tse changes its course every now and
then; it cuts away the soil and new
dikes have to be built. In many places
there are several rows of earth one be-
hind the other, and the remains of
discarded embankments are every
where visible. In the summer the
river rises snd floods everything not
80 diked. Houses are often swept
away, villages are destroyed and the
land becomes a great inland sea. All
along the course are the vestiges of
past floods, and here and there you
see graveyards that the river has eaten
into, and you note the gaping holes
left by the cofins. At one point about
100 miles from where I now am, 1 saw
coffin extending half way out of the
bank. It undoubtedly contained a
skeleton, and the wood was rotten
with age. The water was then within
foot of it, and by this time it must
have been washed out to sea. Here
and there we could see men irrigating
the soil by tread-mill pumps. worked
by half.naked Celestials, and every
where man seemed to be waging a
brave fight with nature and getting
the best of it.
The Yangtse to-day is one of the
greatest trade routes of the world.
China is said to have more boats on
her waters than there are in all the
rest of the world combined. She is
the best watered country in Gods
green earth and has more wonderful
waterways. Suppose you could stretch
a river wider than the Mississippi in
an almost straight line from New York
to Chicago. Suppose 1t to be navi-
gable for the biggest ocean steamers
for that distance from May to Octo-
ber, and let ships from Russia, Ger
many, England and other parts Of the
world sail through it, and load at its
wharves. This would be about what
can be done on the Yangtse Kiang be-
low Ichang. If you wish to carry out
the comparison, however, you must
let the great river extend further
west. If you could stretch it on in q
straight line it would go to Denver,
and still be navigagle for large boats
and barges. You must push it on
further west to San Francisco. and
you are still 500 miles from its source.
It is said to be $500 miles long, and
it has it's rise in the mountains of
Thibet, and has tributaries all along
! its course. It taps two great lakes,
which give it canal communication
with other provinces, and the most of
the tea of the world comes from the
lands south of it and is shipped across
the Poyang Lake, near where I now
am, and sent to Hankow for sale.
Incoming into the Yangtse it's mouth
is so wide that it is hours after you
see the muddy color of its waters be-
fore you can distinguish the banks,
and for the first fifty miles of our
journey We passed through what tseemed
to be great inland sea, ranging from
twenty to fifty miles in width. Our
first hills were passed about fifty miles
inland. geven hundred miles from
the coast I found it's width to be more
than mile, and it holds that width
nearly all the way from Shanghai to
Ichang, a distance of about one thou
sand miles. 1t contains many long,
narrow islands, and it now and then
branches out into different streams or
cut offs from the main bed of the river,
which at high water materially shorten
the course. 1t is as full of modern