THE RED BASIN OF SZECHUAN 67 



over nearly the whole of modern China, and formed an Empire 

 which the succeeding Ming and Manchu dynasties maintained 

 more or less intact. 



Since the time of Kublai Khan many rebellions have 

 swept over Szechuan, decimating the population and paralysing 

 industry. The present population is mainly derived from 

 immigrants (voluntary and otherwise) who settled there during 

 the early half of the eighteenth century. A census taken in 

 A.D. 1710 returned only 144,154 souls for the whole province. 

 To-day the population is estimated at 45,000,000 ! In spite 

 of all the long-sustained wars and bloody rebellions, agri- 

 culture has managed to subsist, and the whole of the Red Basin 

 is a lasting monument to Chinese genius and industry in matters 

 agricultural. An abundant water-supply and constant tillage 

 are necessary to obtain a full crop from these sandy clays 

 and marls. Fortunately, the whole region is one vast net- 

 work of streams, all of which drain into the mighty Yangtsze. 

 The Chinese have taken full advantage of this intricate river 

 system, and devised manifold methods of irrigation. These 

 devices, combined with the untiring patient industry of the 

 people, have converted an incipient " bad land " into a rich 

 and fertile region of terraced fields. In no part of China that 

 I have visited are the people entitled to greater praise for 

 meritorious agricultural accomplishment than throughout this 

 Red Basin. 



In many parts of this region the river valleys are so steeply 

 eroded that very little cultivatable bottom-land is formed. 

 Consequently the rice belt is relegated to slopes and summits 

 of the low, flattened hills. In limestone regions the bottom- 

 lands constitute the main rice belt, but in the sandstone 

 regions the opposite obtains. The climate of the whole region 

 is mild and genial, and during both winter and summer the land 

 is cropped. Rice is the great summer crop with maize, millet, 

 sweet potato, sugar-cane, tobacco, pulse, and various other 

 crops. The principal winter crops are wheat, rape, peas, 

 broad beans, cabbage, Irish potato, etc. Formerly opium was 

 cultivated in enormous quantities as a winter-crop, but this 

 has lately been almost entirely suppressed. Cotton does not 

 thrive in the Red Basin, though its culture is attempted in 



