Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-05-12
A Y A N G T s E FARM YARD.

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 growing 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 embankments must be enormous.
The Yangste changes it's course every now
and then; it cuts away the soil and new
bikes have to be built. In many places
there are several rows of earth, one behind
the other, and the remains of discarded
embankments are everywhere visible. In
the summer the river rises and floods
everything not 50 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 grave
yards that the river has eaten into, and
you note the gaping holes left by the cof-
fins. At one point, about 100 miles from
where / now am, 1 saw a coffin extend
ing half way out of the bank. 1t undoubt-
eddy contained a skeleton, and the wood
was rotten with age. The water was then
within a 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 everywhere man
seemed to be waging a brave fight with
nature and getting the best of it.
The Yangtse today 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 water
ways. Suppose you could stretch q river
wider than the Mississippi in an almost
straight line from New York to Chicago
Suppose it to be navigable for the biggest
ocean steamers for that distance from May
to October. and let ships from Russia, Ger
many, England and other parts of the
world sail through it and load at it's
wharves. This would be about what can
be done on the Yangtse Kiang below
ichang. If you wish to carry out the COM
partSOn, however, you must let the great
river extend further west. If you could
stretch II on in a straight line 1t would go
TO Denver, and still be navigable for large
boats and bargeS. You must push il on
further west to San Francisco, and YOU are
sun hve hundred miles from it's source. 1t
Is said to be three thousand five hundred
miles long, and 1t has its rise in the noun
tains of Thibet and has tributaries all along
its course. 1t taps two great lakes. which
give II canal communication with other
provinces. and the most of the tea of the
world comes from the lands south of 1t and
Is shipped across the Poyang lake near
sale. "
At the Mouth of the River.
In coming into the Yangtse it's mouth is
so wide that it is hours after you see the
muddy color OF Its waters before YOU can
distinguish the banks and for the first ffty
miles or our journey We passed through
what seemed TO be great inland sea rang
ing from twenty to fifty miles In width
our first hills were passed about fifty miles
inland. seven hundred miles from the Goa at
L found its Width TO be more than a mile
anu IL noids that width nearly all the way
from Shanghai to Ichang, a distance ~
about one thousand miles. 1t contains MANY
long. narrow islands, and IL now and then
branches out into different streams or cut