The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-02-14
The Roads of China.

ed by the Shanghai branch of the Asiatic
society of some extensive investigations
made by its agents as to the condition and
maintenance of roads in China. II is not,
however, a chapter on good roads. Indeed
1t is much like the famous chapter on the
snakes in Iceland, for there seem to be no
roads in China worthy the name Instead
of the farmers being interested in the max
ing and maintenance of good roads, as is
the case here, the Chinese farmer inter
ests himself largely in the destruction of
such roads rs may chance to be made. He
does not travel himself and is against any
one else doing so, at least over his land.
There are no public highways made and
maintained by law. Travellers may drive
where they please-so far as the owner of
the land may please-and there is constant
warfare between the two classes, so that
all there is of roads through the country is
just what the one may suffer or the other
wrest.
The Asiatic society concludes that prob
ably no country in the certainly
none aiming at civilization even of the
most rudimentary nature-has paid so lit
tie attention to roads and means of COM
municaton as the Chinese empire" The
only roads that exist are simple paths from
one town or village to another. They fol
low all the natural irregularities of the
country, are never macadamized rarely
drained and on level plains are often en-
tirely underlined, wandering from side to
side to avoid natural puddles or artificial
pitfalls, the latter dug by the farmer in
order to drive the travellers onto his neigh
boris land.
In the northern provinces war for the
possession of the land is waged every
spring between the farmer and the team
ster. The latter has full right to drive
his wagons over the country in any direc
ton that may suit his convenience or fan
cy. The former has an equal right to plow
up any road running over his land, and
generally he exercises it, When team
ster finds an accustomed path plowed over
he takes another route over the adjoining
land. Then the owner of that land digs
pitfalls along the routes in order to save
his crops and drive the teamsters over to
his neighbours property. His neighbor
does the same. But the farmers cannot
continue this indefinitely without doing
more injury to their land and crops than
the recognition of a regular road would
do, so that compromise is gradually ar
rived at. Thus the tracks usually follow
much the same lines from year to year,
but there is sure always to be some little
war about right of way somewhere on a
much frequented route between two viii
lagos.
In the eastern provinces the roads, OF
the tracks that pass for roads, are usually
sunk much below the level of the sur
rounding country, not infrequently as
much as 80 to so feet. The soil is very
sandy, the constant passage of carts keeps
it stirred up and soft, and the wind takes
Al I
thus loosened, so that there is conse-
quent continual tendency of the tracks to
sink. A peculiar result of this is that the
few bridges, which in some spasm of pub
lie spirit have been constructed over rivers
in various places, are usually utterly inn
passable for wheeled traffic. the abutments
being many feet above the sunken road
level The roads through villages in these
regions are invariably sunk below the gen
eral level of the country.
There have been at far distant and long
separated periods emperors who have made
attempts at establishing good means Of
communication between the principal
towns and villages, but the last of these
efforts was as far back as 1899. Vehicles
| came into somewhat general use at these
periods and remained in use while the eff
fects of the reforms lasted But in the
| Yangste delta and the southern provinces
generally carts or wagons have long been
obsolete, because their use became impos
sible. The only wheeled vehicle now used
Is one wheeled handbarrow with the
wheel in the center. The main roads are
generally paved in the middle to a width
of from a foot to two feet with rough
granite stones to accommodate this one
wheel.
While there are no good roads in China
nowadays there are one or two interesting
relics of what were in and for their day,
most excellent roads. The first emperor
of the Hings some time during his reign of
from 1868 to 1899 made road from the
bank of the Yangste, opposite Marking,
to his birth place in Anhui. The levels
were carefully graded and the road car
ried across river valleys on well built arch
ed viRducts. 1t remains today simply a
remarkable specimen of early engineering.
The road from Peking to Tungchow, built
by the emperors of the Yuan dynasty
away back in the dim ages, "remains as a
vast effort of inutility." 1t was paved
with great blocks of granite averaging so
to 80 feet of square surface each, all close
ly jointed. Today it is worn into ruts a
foot deep and is almost impossible. With
the exception of these two roads no at
tempt of any note has been made to facili
tate land communication throughout the
empire The stone bridges at Fukien and
elsewhere, often ins.anced as remarkable,
are notably only as instances of the abili-
ty the Chinese display in moving huge
masses of stone by manual labor For
practical purposes they are of little use,
and, says the report, cas- feats of engineer
ing are contemplate. Students of the
art Of making good roads do not appear to
have much to learn from China.-N. Y. Sun