Evening star., 1924-10-07
CH|HL| IS L|KENED
/ TO NEW ENGLAND
Gulf Resembles Cape Cod
Bay and Climate Is Much
Like Massachusetts.

Chilli, northern zone of Chinese
fighting, is described in the following
bulletin from the National Geo
graphic Society:
..Chihli lies in the New England
States of CHINA region wherein
the provinces of Chihli, Shansi and
Shantung bear some striking anal
ogieS to our own Northeastern States.
IF one disreEards Manchuria this
likeness extends to contour as we'll
a location. Chihli also has frozen
Winter, sudden changes in tempera-
ture, numerous mountains and many
short rivers.
" Aglance at a map will indicate a
comparison of the Gulf of Chilli to
Cape Cod Bay, with the Shantung
Peninsula SerYingt on large scale
Cape Cod. Chihli alone covers nearly
twice the area of the New England
States, and its population is more than
one-fourth that of the entire United
States
Enthusiastically Chihli is the Massa-
chuSettS of China; Tientsin is an up
river port where factories and ship
ping and Western ways have found
firm foothold. This city sends a large
bulk of goods direct to Europe and
the United States. Its exports to the
United States include feathers, goats
boards. fox tails. licorice. human hair,
pig briStles and lanterns.
Western visitors are apt to inter
pret the modern aspects of Tientsin
as an advance in civilization, but the
Chinese of the Interior, one must re-
member, regard these innovations as
barbaric. Chihli combines the old and
the new in startling fashion. North
west of new Tientsin is the venerable
Peking. There one may board a rail-
road which has thrown steel rails
oil n
dirty. busy kalgan, where the cam
els which used to make their toilsome
way into Urga. Mongolia, have been
superseded in part by motor trucks.
This railroad. known as the Pc
king -Suiyuan line, embodies some un-
usual engineering feats and affords
magnificent scenery 1t is the rail
route TO the great wall, mans most
outstanding marker on the earth's
surface, which biSects Chilli.
Dinosaurs Lure Autos.
From Kalgan to Urga, the capital
OF inner Mongolia. is no fartl r than
IL is from Chicago to Cleveland, but
it formerly took 40 days for camels or
bullock carts to bring hides ard wool
along this route. The performance
of an American scientific expedition
which used automobiles in hunting
dinosaur eggs proved motor practica- =
bility- and now autos run on a four
day schedule between the cities.
The first fifteen miles out of Kali
gan is the hardest part of the trip,
passing through the rocky ravine
known as kalgan Pass. Suddenly the
road emerges to the tableland at
Hanaba, and thence it heads through
farming country for fifty miles and
emerges i"to grazing lands which ex-
tend the of the way to Urga, ex-
cept for narrow stretch of waste
gravel. This is an eastern spur of
the misnamed Cobb desert. The So
called desert makes better travelling
than the Chilli roads where high
ways have been worn down a hun
dred feet or more in the deep, loose
earth known as loess. After rain
these centuries worn roads become
rivers and tie up the slow moving
traffic for days.
"A rain in Chihli which only stops
travel is cause for rejoicing. Here
floods are frequent and disastrous. 1t
is difficult for the outsider to realize
the extent and devastation of the
high waters. In 1917 flood inun-
dated an area three times the size of
Connecticut. between Paotingfu and
Tientsin. The crop loss was esti-
mated at 100000, 900 and the num-
Der of villages wiped out. amazing as
the figure may sound, was $4,000.
The best farming country of Chih-
ii lies in strip running back about
loo miles from the coast. This east
,ern plain is densefy populated; it's
soil is amazingly fertile being the
deposit of deltas of the numerous
rivers that empty into Chihli Gulf.
Grains, cotton. peanuts and fruits are
grown and cattle are raised for their
meat
"Chihli launched a fruitful educa-
tional campaign 20 years ago. The re-
suits are most apparent in the cities.
especially in Tientsin. There, some
years ago, a depot of maps and books
was opened by the government, where
school supplies are sold below pub
fishers prices.
Traffic Policemen Abound.
'Tientsin makes its quickest and
sharpest impression by it's excellent
police system. America is introducing
the automobile to Chihli; but Tient-
sin outdoes America in traffic super
vision. There is a traffic policeman on
practically every corner where there
is any traffic at all, and he earns his
pay in trying to keep pedestrians,
carts, 'jinrigishas, autos and the new
pedicabs out of hopeless tangle. The
police also are intrusted with sweep
ing, watering and lighting the streets
and these duties are well performed.
The -pedicab is combination of
a jinrfkfsha and a bicycle. The pas
senger rides in the two-wheel car
riage and the coolie makes better
time than he did walking.
The most amazing variety of We
hicle is to be found in the river,
which winds a serpentine course of
30 miles to the TientSin port of Taku,
only 25 miles away. There is a type
of junk for every use-for passen-
gers for fish, for coal, for long hauls,
for short hauls, for rice tributes. All
these and many more have distinc-
tive names.
Coal is no new idea in Chilli
where it is especially abundant.
Marco Polo found that 'all over the
country of Cathay there is a kind of
black stone existing in beds in the
mountains, which the natives dig out
and burn like firewood.'
The province also is famous for
the Chang-lu salt, produced near
Tientsin One bank of the Hai-ho,
for miles given over to making salt,
is dotted with mounts and windmills
for pumping saline waters into the
salt fields.
"One of the surprises of Chilli is
the way to pronounce it, which is
not like a South American country of
similar spelling, but as if 1t were
spelled 'Jeerhlee.'