A CEUISE UP THE YANGSTZE IN 1858-59. 191 



tea-case, leads our attention to the north-west. "We 

 hear of marts far more important than Shanghai or 

 Canton, of great cities holding populations twice as 

 numerous as London, of rivers so deep, so powerful, 

 that the Chinaman prefers to navigate "by canal to 

 tempting their dangers ; and we look at the Tunting 

 and Poyang lakes, equal to those of Canada in area, 

 and hope that we may one day sail or steam upon 

 them. Yet, by my faith, if we seek for specific de- 

 tails of how to get to either one or the other if we 

 seek for any information as to depth of water, or any 

 fact connected with the watery highway which is to 

 lead us to these wonders we find all such informa- 

 tion ceases at the spot reached by our fleet in the year 

 1842. Beyond that point, Nankin, all our researches, 

 aided by consular authorities as well as the mercantile 

 community, amount to the assertion that the Ameri- 

 can steain - frigate Susquehannah had subsequently 

 ascended as far as the town of Woo-hoo, one hundred 

 miles farther than Nankin, but the officers of that ship 

 did not record any topographical information, and that 

 we must rest content with the Jesuit map of the em- 

 pire as our guide. It is now two hundred years old ; 

 as an authority the Chinese copies have villanously 

 distorted the original ; and even in it the Yangstze is 

 a mere thread of water winding tortuously through 

 many more lakes than we can now hear of, probably 

 inundations prevailing at the time of the survey, with- 

 out a single depth along its entire length, and without 



