146 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



and with far greater security for the coast-borne trade than in former years, now that 

 revenue steam-cruisers patrol the coast, and the whole junk-traffic is under the supervision 

 of the Imperial Maritime Customs. 



Mount now to the top of the Pagoda " Heaven-invested " (^ ii ^), and see the great 

 city below you, and mark the three-fold embrace with which nature and art have combined 

 to surround her, and, as the Ningpo people once fondly hoped, surely to protect her. See the 

 magnificent sweep of the amphitheatre of hills, a hundred miles and more in circuit, with 

 peaks rising to two or three thousand feet. They bend coastwards from Chinhai to the 

 south of the Eastern lakes, and then twining behind Funghwa to the Shihdeoz hills and the 

 great S-ming-saen range, leap the Yung river to Tszechi and the ridge of mountains which 

 sweeps to the Crouching Dragon Hill and Hap'u. From thence to Chinhai — a distance of 

 about ten miles — stretches a low shore with shoal-water from which the sea is fast receding; 

 and this forms the mouth of the amphitheatre and the opening of the horseshoe, and is 

 itself a continuation of the defence. Then watch the gleam of water all round the five 

 miles and more of the wall ; the two branches of the river washing the south-east and 

 north-east faces ; and the broad moat on the north-west and south-west, with only a narrow 

 neck of land at the north gate, less than a hundred yards in breadth — the only breach in 

 that circumambient watery defence. 



The third and inner line of all is the wall itself, eighteen Chinese // in circuit, with an 

 average of twenty-five feet in height and a width of twenty-two feet at the base and fifteen 

 at the top. The wall is pierced with six gates with an enceinte to each, namely the North, 

 South, East and West gates, and the Salt and Spiritual Bridge gates. The last-named gate 

 leads to the old bridge of boats, of unknown antiquity, crossing which we enter one of the 

 busiest suburbs of the city, Kongtung, or "East of the River." There is a second floating 

 bridge of recent date connecting the east gate with the foreign settlement. 



Now this city, though probably at least twelve hundred years old, is not Old Ningpo. 

 The original city lay at some distance from the present site and I have seen the grass- 

 covered heavings of the ancient walls. The old name was Yangchow (^ ^"l) or Yungtung 

 (S W.) "bursting eastwards," a name which it still bears in certain documents. It was a 

 comparatively insignificant place in ancient days. It is mentioned in the time of the great 

 Yii (B.C. 2205), and it was then under the jurisdiction of Kwekyi, which forms now one of 

 the districts of the Shaouhingfu ; and is in its turn, by the revolution of the destinies of 

 countries, under the control of the Intendant of Ningpo. 



The province of Chehkiang, of which Ningpo is the commercial capital and the chief 

 seaport, is full of the voices of the past. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, as Chehkiang 

 formed the southern limit of ancient China. Shun, the Chinese Cincinnatus, called from 

 the plough to the throne, tilled, if he ever really did so, his fields with an elephant and an 

 ox near the site of the present city of Yiiyao, thirty miles above Ningpo. It was in his 

 home there that he maintained so calm a demeanour amidst the quarrels of two troublesome 

 wives, as to attract the attention of the Emperor Yao, who called him thence to share with 

 him the Dragon Throne. Fifty years later the great Yii subdued the floods which submerged 

 China, after nine years of such incessant care that he is said to have passed and repassed 

 his home again deaf to the call of wife and children. His tomb and image are to be seen 



