" Harnessed in the irrigation channels, the Tigris and Euphrates had become as mighty forces of production as the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtse and the Hoang-Ho.

Thus the Euphrates and Tigris of Mesopotamia, the Ganges and Indus of India, and the Hoang and Yangtse of China, were the creators of history; but this is true in Africa only of the Nile.

I knew it was, for all over the earth I had pursued it, and found it in the wild flowers of the Sausalito hills in California more than among the gayeties of Paris, the gorges of the Yangtse-Kiang, or in the skull dance of the wild Dyak of Borneo.

The party started up the Yangtse, travelling from Shanghai to Hankow and thence to Ichang by steamerthen by house-boat towed by coolies through wonderful gorges and one dangerous rapid to Chunking and Chengtu.

There can rank with it only the Nile, and the Yangtse-kiang, or Great River of China.

In the W. are lofty mountain ranges running N. and S., from which parallel ranges run E. and W., rising to greatest height in the S. Two great rivers traverse the country, the Hoang-ho and the Yangtse-kiang, the latter with many large lakes in its course, and bearing on its waters an innumerable fleet of boats and barges.

CHUSAN (30 or 40), principal island in the Chusan Archipelago, 18 m. long and 10 broad; near the estuary of the Yangtse-kiang, has been called "the Key of China.

SHANGHAI (380), the chief commercial city and port of China, on the Wusung, an affluent of the Yangtse-kiang, 12 m. from the coast, and 160 m. SE.

and Yunnan (SW.); more than twice the size of Great Britain; a hilly country, rich in coal, iron, &c., and traversed by the Yangtse-kiang and large tributaries; Chingtu is the capital; two towns have been opened to foreign trade, opium, silk, tobacco, musk, white wax, &c., being chief exports.