A CEUISE UP THE YANGSTZE IN 1858-59. 199 



million of inhabitants. A wretched war-vessel, called 

 the Pao-shan, under imperial colours, and some half- 

 dozen small junks, were now the melancholy repre- 

 sentatives of commercial fleets which one of our 

 embassies was two days in traversing in a barge. 

 Golden Island was a mere wreck ; its famous library 

 had been burnt ; its temples levelled ; a ruin only 

 left of the exquisite pagoda ; and the river, as if 

 anxious to wipe out even the record of its past fame 

 and present degradation, had actually silted up with 

 mud the channel of deep water formerly existing 

 between Golden Island and the southern bank, for 

 men walked dry-footed where ships formerly floated. 

 Silver Island was equally ravaged, and the city of 

 Kwachow, at the entrance of the canal on the 

 northern bank of the Yangstze, was a mere assem- 

 blage of battered hovels and roofless tenements. 

 Standing on the summit of Silver Island, the view 

 was everywhere equally sad, and indicative of the 

 terrible desolation occasioned by the rebellion. The 

 country had apparently gone out of cultivation ; and 

 as far as the eye could scan northward over the once 

 rich and populous plain, through which the Grand 

 Canal led to the Hoang-ho, hardly a farmstead was 

 visible ; and extensive inundations only truly told of 

 the breaking down of the embankments, and the 

 utter misery which had fallen upon what once was 

 the "Garden of China." 



Under ordinary circumstances we should have 



