44 DESCENT INTO GREAT PLAIN OF CHINA. 



— Strings of asses laden with coal, mule-carts, litter- 

 bearers, and scavengers pass along. In all the vil- 

 lages and towns full-grown men may be seen all 

 day long on the roads, with a basket in one hand 

 and a spade in the other, collecting animal dung, 

 which is used for manuring the fields and for fuel. 



Twenty miles from Kalgan, on the edge of the 

 plain, stands the large town of Siuen-hwa-fu, sur- 

 rounded, like all the Chinese towns, with a battle- 

 mented mud wall, like the Kitai-gorod at Moscow. 

 After leaving it, the road enters the mountains, fol- 

 lowing a gorge through which flows the rapid and 

 wide stream of the Yang-ho. In the narrower and 

 more intricate parts of the defile the road is hewn 

 out of the rocks, and it is altogether well adapted 

 for wheeled conveyances. After passing the town 

 of Tsi-ming, we again enter a plain, about nine miles 

 wide, extending towards the v/est between two chains 

 of mountains, one of which we have just crossed ; the 

 other, higher and far grander, forms the outer bar- 

 rier of the second descent by which the table-land of 

 Eastern Asia subsides into the plain which extends 

 eastward to the Yellow Sea. 



The elevation of the country between Kalgan 

 and Chadau, which stands at the entrance to the 

 last range of mountains, is very even, and the jour- 

 ney is continued over high land.^ At Chadau the 

 descent of the second range, called Si-shan by the 

 Chinese, begins. Like the Kalgan mountains, this 



' Kalj^an is 2,800 feet, Chadau (Chatow or Chatao of our maps) 

 i,6oo feet, above the sea. 



