June i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



933 



to improve it as the only hope for the future. Unless 

 this be done, we fear that not ouly will all China's 

 profit from foreign trade be extinguished, but even 

 a direct drain on her resources may ensue. For the 

 question of tea export is of serious consequence to 

 the State. To neglect to improve the preparation 

 and merely levy extra taxes will kill the China tea 

 trade. Wc hope that all the otlier provinces will follow 

 the example of Hupei. — China Mail, April 3. 



SECHUEN OR UNKNOWN INLAND CHINA: 



MR. HOSIE S INTERESTING JOURNEY : NEW VEGETATION 

 AND INDUSTRIES. 



An interesting narrative of a journey in a rvinote 

 inlaud province of the Chinese Empire has recently 

 been issued in the unattractive lorm of an English 

 parliamentary paper. It is a report by Mr. Alexander 

 Hosie of a tour through Central Sechuen in the 

 months of June and July last year. Sechuen lies 

 upon the upper waters of the great Chinese river, 

 the Yang-tse-Kiang, which tiaverses it for eight or 

 nine hundred miles. Mr. Hosie left Ohunching, an 

 important town on the Yang-tse-Kiang, at th- begin- 

 ning of June, and going eigiity miles north, reached 

 the important trade centre of Ho Chou. Here three 

 streams, winch drain northeastern Sechuen,meet to form 

 the Chiasliug River, which flows down to the Yang-tse- 

 Kiang at Chung king The country from which tin Be 

 rivers come is rich in salt, silk, safflower and other 

 products, which are shipped at Ho Chou, and sent 

 down to the Gieat River. In return for these ex- 

 ports come foreigu goods which are distributed from 

 Ho Chou us a great commercial centre. Leaving Ho 

 Chou on a wet Summer day, with beaiersand carri- 

 ers, who like all the Chinese, had great dread of 

 a drenching, Mr. Hosie struck westward for the Min 

 River, iuteuding to visit the famous Mount O'mei, 

 and then to proceed to the highest navigable point 

 in I he upper Yaug-tse, or, as it is there called, the 

 Chin-sha-Chiang or River of Golden Sand. The road 

 lay through a rich country, full of small farms with 

 homesteads nestling amongst the trees. Bamboo and 

 fir abound, the palm and the banyan are scattered 

 here and there, the wood-oil tree is dotted about on 

 its favorite bits of rocky soil, plantations of mulberry 

 are met with, and thick copsss surrounded. by walls, 

 mark the resideuces of landed properties. On ter- 

 raced hills and in bottom lands, there are fields of 

 paddy fringed with beans; the Indian corn is nearly 

 ripe; tobacco is well advanced; the melon shows 

 its star-shaped flower ; and ginger-looking like young 

 bamboos are springing up from carefully prepared 

 beds a foot deep and halt a foot broad. In the fields 

 are rustics clad in palm coir cloaks, taking advautage 

 of the rain to plant the sorghum which they have 

 plucked from the nurseries It is a picture of au 

 agricultural country and au indubious and contented 

 people. Ston* bridges cross the streams, excellent 

 coal is mined in the lulls and sold at the pit's mouth 

 for less than a dollar a ton, and there are other 

 signs of tiale. At Ihe large market town of Pataug, 

 reached on the evening ot the second day, a sort of 

 pleasure fair w;<s going on, and the uislics who had 

 swarmed in from the country were l.sieoiug t> music, 

 it (slashings of cymbals, screechings of pipes, and 

 b-ating or drums, are w onhy the name. The crowds 

 were anxious to make a little fun out of the foreigner, 

 but no harm came of it, and quiet was found lu the 

 windowless room of a crowded inn. 



Thus the journey cont.nued irom day today. The 

 roads were good, but most tortuous, winding round 

 the paddy fields as though the old engineers 

 had no notiou that two sides of a triangle were 

 greater than the third. In one town it was 



market day, and the chief goods for sale were tea 

 and cottons. The tea was sold at 3 cents a pound, 

 and was as good as that which in England is sold 

 at two and a half shillings, or in America at 75 

 cents. The cotton cloth was of native manufacture. 

 Cotton is largely manufactured in the district of 

 Tatsu, where the price of raw cotton is about a 

 shilling a pound. North of the city of Tatsu lies a 

 range of hills in which iron and coal are found in 

 abundauce. There are smelting works in the market 

 town of Yulung-chang, which give work to more than 

 two hundred families. Each of the mines employs about 

 two hundred hands and the daily out put of ea.h mine 

 is about two tons of iron plates. The rivers are every- 

 where the highways of commerce. In the course of 

 his journey Mr. Hosie visited the sacred mountain 

 O'mei, which has been described by Mr. Baber 

 Hundreds of pilgrims were going thither on foot aud 

 shrines and temples thickly dotted the road. At each 

 of these the pilgrim makes obeisance, lights a jo^s 

 stick or a candle and passes on. Beggais swarmed • 

 but the priests begged most peisistentiy. 



On the top of the mountain is the temple with a 

 frightful precipice behind it. Here ihe glory of 

 Buddha is seen when the sun bursts through' ihe 

 clouds over head aud reveals his image on the clouds 

 below. A dense fog hung over it when Mr. Hosie 

 was there, and he saw nothing but the impenetrable 

 haze. Alter leaving O'mei some seiious difficulties 

 arose. At one point in the journey Mr. Hosie and 

 his bearers aud servants were nearly slarved, and 

 at another were in some danger of being captured 

 by the AJautzu, who live in the mouutans and some- 

 times make laids ou the villages. Everywhere too 

 the curiosity of the country people to see' tlm 

 foreigner was a source of annoyance, though the 

 escort, provided by the Chinese authorities prevented 

 any real danger. The inns, with one solitary excep- 

 tion, were execrable beyond the possibility of de- 

 soription. Mr. Hosie expresses his perfect surprise 

 that travellers in the interior of China are not dead 

 in the first week. The return journey was made on 

 the liver. 



The onjecfc of the expedition was to collect in. 

 formation on the subject of the white wax made by 

 certain insects in China, and to procure for Kew 

 Gardens specimens of the trees on which the insects 

 live, and ot the wax they produce. This object seems 

 to have bees accomplished. The chief wax-producing 

 district in China is that western end of the province 

 of Sechuen which Mr. Hosie traversed, and especially 

 the distucts of O'mei, Chieu-wi, aud Loshan. It is 

 a double product. The wax insects are produced 

 in Chiauchau, and carried over the mountains to the 

 wax trees in dilating, of which O'mei aud the other 

 districts named form a part. The insect tree is au 

 evergreen, with dark glossy, pointed leaves, which 

 spring from the branches in pairs. On the bark of 

 its boughs and twigs small excrescences or galls are 

 found in the early .Summer, and thi 33 galls on being 

 detached are seen to contaiu swaims of minute in- 

 sects, and in some cases a small beetle. This beetle 

 eats a hole in toe shell and lets the insects escape. 

 Ihe Chinese collect these gals in ihe early part of 

 May and convey tlnm to the district where anoiher 

 eveigrccu called the wax tree grows The galls are 

 attached to this tree and th* insects creep" out and 

 adhere to its blanches. They appear to suck the sap 

 aud to deposit it in the shape of white wax. In 

 the couisi of from ninety to a hundred days the 

 branches thus become thickly coated, and in fe0 od 

 y.a-s the wax thus formed attains the thickness of 

 a quarter ot an inch. At the proper time the branches 

 thus coated are lopped and the wax rubbed off by 

 the hand, and heated in water. It rises melted to 

 the surface, is skimmed off and run into moulds, and 



