Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1894-07-26
The GRAND CANAL.
A GLANCE AT cHiNA'S GREAT
WATERWAY.
1t Runs Through Vast and .Thickly
Populated Country and Taps Some
of the Biggest Cities in the World.

Populated Country and Taps Some
of the Biggest Cities in the World.
write this letter at Chinkiang.
walled city on the banks of the Yang
tse River, says Frank G. Carpenter
| In letter from China. 1t is Just
about $50 miles from the seacoast,
and is at the point where the grand
canal crosses the Yangtse. This
canal is one of the great wonders OF
the world. 1t is now in bad repair,
and large part of it is going to ruin.
But it has been one of the great
waterways of the world, and it ex
tends from Picking south to Hang
Chow, running through the great
! plain from north to middle China,
distance about as great as that be-
| tween New York and Chicago. 1t
cuts its way through territory con-
tanning ITO, 600, coo people, or nearly
three times as many as the whole
United States, and it taps some
of the biggest cities of the world.
| Picking, where it finishes its course
| at the palace, not far from the
| American Legation, is a city of more
than LOCO, 600 people. Tientsin, be-
low this about eighty miles, is still
| larger, and as it runs further south,
the canal is dotted with walled cities
and great towns all along it's course
| to the Yangtse River. Chinkiang is
about as big as Minneapolis.
| Yangchow, the next big city
| on the canal south of here,
contains, | am told, half million
! of people, and Soochou and Hang.
chow each have something like three
| quarters of million souls. At
| every thirty miles along the course
of the canal there is walled city,
containing many times ten thousand
| people, and the country back Of it is
p garden, spotted with clumps OF
trees, each clump shading Chinese
| village. The canal at Chinkiang cuts
| right around the city, forming the
| island upon which the main part OF
| it is located 1t runs from here
northward for $50 miles without
| lock, but above this, | am told, there
| are numerous sluices and locks, and
in some places the water is carried
through the country on great
stone embankments, twenty and
more feet high, and the stream at
some of these places is fully 200 feet
wide. 1t has stone hoodgates,
! managed by soldiers, and it is here
and there fed by creeks and rivers.
| AT one point river was conducted
into it in times past, and the Chinese
say that 300, 600 men were employed
| for seven months in turning the
water of this stream. 1t cuts the
/ Yellow River, and it is below this
| that the stone entertainments above
spoken of are located. The parts
which | have seen are those which
run near here, through the Yangtse
Valley, and those about Tientsin and
Peking. Here the canal is more like
a great ditch than anything else, and
there is now a little army of men en-
ployed in keeping it in repair. 1t
was in existence more than / 600
! years ago, and Kublai Kahn laid out
the line upon which it now runs.
The chief use for the canal in times
past has been that of a trade artery
from the north to the south. 1t taps
by its connecting canals and rivers
every part of the great plain, and it
is used for the transportation of the
! tribute rice to Picking.
| The government taxes of China are
| to large extent collected in kind,
! and every year the farmers send
about 1873, 900, 600 pounds of rice from
here to Peking for the Emperor and
his officials. At Marking l saw acres
| of great barns which were filled with
this rice awaiting shipment, and
every town along the canal has its
| government barns. Just now the
rice is being taken to the north. o.:
late much of it goes by sea, but a
vast deal is still sent by the Grand
J Canal, and at every town there are
4 hundreds of craft of every kind, and
these government junks sometimes
| block the canal for days. Hundreds
of men are employed in towing and
/ pulling the boats, and at places they
are dragged along by means of cap
STAINS. The canal winds about like a
river in places, and navigation
through it is so slow that some OF
these rice boats have started in April
during the past few Vars and have
not arrived in Pekin it'll septem.
Der.
Parts of the canal are closed to
traffic except during the carrying of
the tribute rice, and the condition of
4 it to-day is such that it will hardly
be used again as the great waterway
which it has been in the past. Lii
Hung Chang has asked the Emperor
to allow him to build a railroad along
it from Tientsin to Chinkiang, and
1 this will eventually be done.