Description of Shasze 25 



sandbanks which block the river-channel hereabouts, possibly 

 before the dyke was built j at this time it would exist in 

 winter only, and be buUt of reed huts, removable in the 

 summer floods, like many of the mushroom towns one now 

 meets with, adjacent to the junk anchorages. Shasze is 

 thus reputed the most important Chen or mart in the empire ; 

 Hankow, the most important Kow or mouth ; and Shanghai, 

 the most important Hsien or district city. Of Fu, or 

 prefectural cities, the most celebrated " under Heaven " are 

 Su-chow and Hangchow (Chow meaning divisional city), of 

 which the old proverb says : — • 



"Above is Heaven's hall (Paradise), 

 Below are the cities of Su and Hang." 



At daylight set out to cross the dyke, on and behind 

 which the town is built, and up to which the canal by which 

 we came runs. Lying in the main river, and moored to 

 the opposite slope of the dyke, lay the Szechuan boat that 

 my man had hired to take us to Chung-king ; the distance 

 across the dyke and through the town being about one 

 mile. I started thus early so as to avoid being mobbed 

 in the streets; these were in the abominably filthy con- 

 dition common to all Chinese cities. At length reached 

 the river-bank, down which I clambered a distance of 

 thirty feet, and entered the boat. Here I waited alone 

 from 7 a.m. till i p.m., for the men with our luggage. 

 The cook engaged for the trip did not turn up at all, and, 

 alone in the boat, I had to content myself with a meal 

 of dry bread, fourteen days old, the last remnant of my 

 Hankow provisions. Eventually, after dark, the cook 

 turned up, bringing with him an enormous sack, weighing 

 133 pounds, and containing dried shrimps, his little 

 private spec, for the Szechuan market. Not wishing to 



