BRIDGE AT YUEN-MING-YUEN, CHINA
In the provinces west from Chihli—Shansi, Shensi and Kansu—the soil is formed of what are called the loess beds, which are extremely fertile, the fields composed of it hardly requiring any other manure than a sprinkling of its own fresh loam. The husbandman in this way obtains an assured harvest two and even three times a year. This fertility, provided there be a sufficient rainfall, seems inexhaustible.
Seas, Rivers and Canals.—The semi-mediterranean seas and gulfs of the Pacific along the coasts of China are distinguished by separate names. In the north, between the Korean peninsula and the mainland of China, is the Hoang Hai or Yellow Sea, three hundred miles wide, named from the lemon color of its waters, filled with the alluvium brought down to it by the Hoang-ho, and so shallow that its muddy bed is frequently furrowed by passing vessels. Within or northward lie the Bay of Korea and the Gulfs of Pechihli and Liaotung, the two last separated almost entirely from the outer China Sea by the projecting promontories of Shantung and Liaotung. South of the Yellow Sea, between the mainland and southern Japan, with the chain of the Luchu Islands and Formosa, extends the wider Tunghai [679] or Eastern Sea; and from this the Fukien Channel, between Formosa and the coast of China, one hundred miles wide, leads into the great mediterranean called the Nanhai or South Sea of China, which is almost completely shut in by Borneo and the Philippine Islands. The coasts of the Yellow Sea bordering on the great plain are low and flat; southward thence to the Island of Hainan the shores of China rise steep, and are dotted round with rocky islets.
GREAT CHINESE WALL,
erected to protect the ancient empire from the inroads of nomadic Tartars about 214 B.C. The main substance of the wall is earth or rubbish, retained on each side by a strong casing of stone and brick, and terraced by a platform of square tiles. The thickness of the wall at the base is often as much as twenty-five feet. (See full description [below].)
The rivers of China—called for the most part ho in the north, and chiang (kiang) in the south, are one of its most distinguishing features.
Two of them stand out conspicuous among the great rivers of the world: the Ho, Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, and the Chiang, or Yang-tze-kiang. They rise not far from each other among the mountains of Tibet. The Ho pursues a tortuous course seaward through North China; the Chiang or Yang-tze through Central China. The terrible calamities caused by the inundations of the Hoang-ho have procured for it the name of “China’s Sorrow.” The Ho is not much under the Chiang in length—somewhat over three thousand miles.
Besides these may be noted the Pei-ho, which gathers the waters of the northern portion of the great plain, and forms a highway of communication between the capital city of Peking and the port of Tien-tsin, thirty-five miles above its mouth; the Min, the river of the province of Fukien, by which the Bohea teas are brought down to the port of Fu-chou; and the Si-kiang, the largest river of southern China, one of the delta branches of which forms the Chu-kiang, or river of the great port of Canton.
The three largest lakes of China lie immediately south of the course of the Yang-tze. The Tung-ting-hu, seventy miles long, and the Poyang-hu, nearly as large, are expansions of the mouths of the chief southern tributaries of the Yang-tze in Central China; the third, the Tai-hu, lies south of the estuary.