FERDINAND, FREIHERR VON RICHTHOFEN 563 



Richthofen's constant and loyal companion. Von Richthofen gives 

 him great credit for the success of the expeditions, and no doubt with 

 justice, since the interpreter holds the fate of a party in the hollow 

 of his hand. 



With an appropriate sense of caution which, coupled with courage, 

 resolution, and a strict sense of justice, was the basis of his success 

 among the Chinese, von Richthofen made his first journeys by water 

 on the Yang-tz'i below Hankow, and the canals and lagoons of its 

 lower course. His third journey was an extended one, by land, 

 through the province of Shan-tung, and it is perhaps not too much to 

 say that during the six weeks he spent there in the spring of 1869 he 

 laid the foundations for the occupation of the peninsula by the Ger- 

 mans, who have developed their enterprises closely along the lines 

 foreshadowed in his geological reports. From Shan-tung he pro- 

 ceeded to the Liau-tung peninsula, which he traversed as far as the 

 borders of Korea, and, returning via Mukden, he reached Peking. 

 The traveler was now reluctantly brought to consider the necessity 

 of returning home, when through the efforts of Mr. Alexander 

 Cunningham, head of the American house of Russell & Co., the 

 Chamber of Commerce at Shanghai became interested in his explora- 

 tions and undertook to support them. Having made a short trip, 

 which he calls his fourth journey, through Kiang-si and Cho-kiang, 

 von Richthofen began to prepare for the fifth journey, during 

 which he traversed China from south to north, from Canton to 

 Peking, and passed through a number of provinces where the popula- 

 tion was believed to be peculiarly inimical to foreigners, and where 

 he was a pioneer. His route from Canton to Hankow, on the Yang- 

 tz'i, was that afterward followed by the American engineer, Parsons, 

 and that along which the proposed North-South Trunk Railway of 

 China is to be built. Northward from Hankow he traveled by the 

 Han River to the western margin of the great plains, and thence fol- 

 lowed the foothills northward to the Yellow River. After crossing 

 the latter he turned westward into the mountainous province of 

 Shan-si, the province of great coal resources, and pursued thence the 

 imperial highway to Peking. This journey occupied five months, 

 from January to May, 1870. It was an enterprise of the highest 

 daring, and one which yielded a rich treasure of observations in 

 geography, geology, and the natural resources of the country. 



