TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES — HANGCHOW. 161 



of Ktijin. Some ten thousand Siutsai ibaccalaurei) usually assemble, for whose accommoda- 

 tion as many brickwork cells are provided, ranged parallel rows facing south, and the whole 

 bisected by the broad central avenue of the enclosure. 



Within the walls are also found quarters for the Imperial Examiners and the high 

 Mandarins who are their assessors ; for several literary aspirants all of official rank ; for 

 some hundreds of copying clerks, since no essay is examined in the autograph ; a staff of 

 block-cutters and printers, a troop of cooks and servants ; besides a temple to the patron of 

 literature standing at the centre of the great quadrangle. As a literary province Chehkeang 

 stands high, — third or fourth, perhaps, of the eighteen. 



The tidal " bore " is best seen at Haining, some 30 miles from Hangchow, and easily 

 accessible direct from Shanghai. It is at its highest usually soon after the equinoxes, but 

 a tidal wave of some height is to be seen frequently throughout the year. The phenomenon 

 has been elaborately described by Captain Moore, R.N., in a paper read before the North- 

 China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society {Journal, Vol. xxiii. No. 3). 



The river is the highway of communication with the south and south-west of 

 Chehkeang, as well as with the provinces beyond the border. Before steamers were known 

 and appreciated by the Chinese it was a favourite route for travellers to Canton. The other 

 great highway, by which the north and east are reached, is the Grand Canal. From the 

 earliest times a chain of inland waters seems to have connected Hangchow with the 

 Yangtze, and so with the north and Peking. Kublai's principal achievement appears to have 

 consisted in perfecting the northern part of the great system in Shantung and Chihli. The 

 last southern link, uniting Hangchow with Dongsi, which had been the terminus till then, 

 was completed some 40 years after his death by an insurgent chief who held Soochow under 

 the last Mongol sovereign. 



Hangchow became famous for its wealth and the beauty of its scenery long before the 

 Mongol, in the ninth century. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries under the magnificent 

 house of Sung it was almost at the zenith of its splendour and fame, when Su Tiengp'o ruled 

 it as Prefect and sung the praises of its lake and hills. In the following century it became the 

 capital of the Southern Dynasty ; and under effeminate monarchs shorn of half their empire 

 it nevertheless shone with yet greater magnificence. Its vast extent at that time suggested 

 to Marco Polo's memory the well known hundred miles of wall and bridges over intramural 

 canals reckoned by the thousand. The real extent seems to have been about 20 miles of 

 wall ; though, if the persistent tradition could be verified which places Su's yamen to the 

 west of the Sihu, a much larger area was enclosed. 



Colonel Yule's edition of Marco Polo is a repository of glaring sketches by mediaeval 

 writers of the wealth and beauty of Hangchow, enriching his quaintly graceful rendering 

 of the Venetian's old French. 



