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. ae 2 ee) Bickmore—Journey through China. 
and rebellion has followed rebellion too quickly for her to ac- — 
complish the ever recurring task ; and besides, the people do | 
not care to labor much, when there is every probability that — 
a outlaws or robbers from a neighboring province will profit by — 
their industry. Yet it is true they do raise some trees in afew — 
laces; but over all the wide area that I have traveled, nota — 
tenth part of the soil is thus improved that might be; and then — 
the trees are generally cut down before they attain any consid- — 
erable size; and this, in districts where the population is num- — 
bered by the hundred thousand. The grand old trees which 
are occasionally seen around the Buddhist temples, owe their 
preservation only to the superstitions of the destroyers, and 
these show well what splendid timber thousands of hill-sides in 
China might yield. : 2 
But in regard to the ‘low lands, it scarcely seems possible 
raised—two full crops being obtained in nearly every part of 
- (where all their rice and most other sustenance is obtained) 
are all, or very nearly all, subject to floods at least once a year, 
a rusty iron tinge where large frag- 
ments have been lately detached, the whole traversed Ei every 
hrough, in ev on 
the whole exterior they are eetstirict 
furrowed. by perpendicular grooves, worn by the small streams 
that course down their sides during every slight shower. 
