A VISIT TO THE HANGCHOW BORE 115 



by way of the water-route we have already described. In 1905 the 

 total trade of the port amounted to 17,496,980 Haikuan taels. 2 Our 

 interest in these facts in the present connection lies in this: that this 

 ancient and important city, whose population is now about 350,000, 

 owes its very existence toward the southwest to the construction of the 

 great sea-wall, called by the natives the " bore wall." 



It is probably true that some thousands of years ago the great flat 

 area now forming a considerable part of the province of Chekiang and 

 Kiangsu was under water and that the Yangtse, gradually increasing 

 its delta, reclaimed the land. The inhabitants, to assist the river in 

 its land-forming process, built sea-walls, using the various islands as 

 corner-stones. The wall or dyke confining the waters of the Haining- 

 Hangchow canal is probably one of these early structures, which has 

 better withstood the ravages of time and tide. As these walls were 

 multiplied and extended, they caused the projecting north point formed 

 by the alluvial deposits of the Yangtse and the Ch'ien-tang Kiang to 

 extend seaward, thus forming the present funnel-shaped mouth of the 

 latter river, as already noted, and obstructing to a considerable extent 

 the progress of the ocean tide, the northern promontory deflecting it 

 inwards and the shoals causing it to heap up into an increasingly 

 powerful wave — the forerunner of the present bore. Against this 

 rush of water the poorly constructed dykes were insufficient and the 

 people along the shores of Hangchow Bay, especially on the northern 

 side, frequently suffered great losses. 



2 A tael is about five sixths of a gold dollar and is the unit of trade in China. 



