CHAPTER VI. 



DESCRIPTION OF HSI-AN FU — CLARK AND SOVVERBY's JOURNEY TO 



LAN-CHOU FU. 



LJSI-AN 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 Ssuch'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-men 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 thb tower. 



t The projected railway from Honan-Fu to Hsi-an Fu vid Shan Chou and T'nng-kuan Hsien, has as yet only fifty miles 



of earthwork under construction, starting from the first-named. 



44 



