CHAPTERS Viz 
DESCRIPTION OF HSI-AN FU—CLARK AND SOWERBY’S JOURNEY TO 
LAN-CHOU FU. 
HSLAN FU, the Western City of Peace, ancient capital of China, the 
home and burial-place of many illustrious emperors, lies in a great plain 
watered by the Wei Ho, a navigable and important tributary of the still 
mightier Huang Ho or Yellow River. A city of no mean appearance, its 
extensive walls and massive gate-towers rival those of the modern capital. 
The population, fixed and floating, is very large; merchants, pedlars, and 
other travellers of every sort flocking hither from all parts of the empire. 
The traffic of six great highways pours daily through its streets. The road 
from Peking, joined at the frontier of the province by that from Honan, enters 
on the east; a second from the south-east, in which direction lie Hankow and 
the Han River, with the water-borne commerce of Shang Chou; a third taps 
the produce of Han-chung Fu and Ssiich’uan in the south-west; a fourth 
enters the western side from Kansu, and its north-western extension, the New 
Dominion, and from Tibet; a fifth and sixth from the north-west, and north 
respectively, bringing with them, the former skins and wool from Ning-hsia 
Fu, the latter the trade of North Shensi, and Mongolia. The unceasing 
ebb and flow of wealth from this enormous area places Hsi-an Fu in the first 
rank of importance as a distributing centre. 
The plan of the city differs but little from that of any other large Chinese 
capital. Outside are the usual extensive suburbs, and within long streets 
lined with shops, and crossed at intervals by shorter streets; some of the 
points of intersection being spanned by square, four-arched towers. The 
most important and central tower in the place, the Ku-lu* (or Drum Tower), 
is, however, set slightly back from the main street, and astride of one of the 
cross streets. The open spaces in front of the various Ya-mén are thronged 
with busy crowds; cooked food of every description is sold and eaten in the 
streets; and on all sides hawkers display their wares under booths of straw- 
mat or blue cloth. The fat lands round the city produce great quantities of 
wheat, rice, and cotton. Of these, the last is sent off in wheelbarrows to the 
railhead} at Ho-nan Fu, whilst the surplus grain is distributed over Kansu and 
South Shansi. 
* Our observations for latitude and longitude were reduced to the centre of the base of this tower. i 
+ The projected railway from Honan-Fu to Hsi-an Fu via Shan Chou and T’ung-kuan Hsien, has as yet only fifty miles 
of earthwork under construction, starting from the first-named. 
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