250 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



to mining, and indeed to every industry but agriculture, 

 prevents the superabundant population finding employment 

 in the many new enterprises which steam communication 

 would inevitably open up, were the restrictions that now 

 forbid all enterprises of the kind freely removed. 



I have often twitted the Chinese officials at Ichang upon 

 our having to import the coal for our steamers all the way 

 from Japan and 1000 miles up the Yang-tse river, when 

 Ichang lies upon the border of the largest and easiest 

 accessible coal-field in the world (Richthofen). Yet such is 

 the fact. No foreigner is allowed to have anything to do 

 with mines, and even the natives are discouraged from 

 mining on a large scale owing to the dread the mandarins 

 have to any assemblage of unruly men, such as miners are 

 supposed to be. Thus the mineral wealth of the great West 

 lies undeveloped, while thousands of able-bodied men go 

 about begging their bread. Nor are there any signs of a 

 change in the immediate future. Were it otherwise, the 

 masses, who earn a bare subsistence by serving as beasts 

 of burden, would have more elevating occupations opened 

 out for them, and might be earning decent wages, while 

 adding to the general prosperity of their native land. 



Returned once more to the comforts and amenities of our 

 European civiUzation after a three months' absence amongst 

 the Chinese proper, I was mostlyistruck by the total absence 

 of all change, and by the intense stagnation of this peculiar 

 people. Such as the Ser Marco Polo describes them, such 

 are they to-day. Indeed, we may go back ten centuries 

 further — to the time of Pliny — and find them described by 

 the same characteristics ; and for this reason I will conclude 

 by quoting Pliny's words, which are as much to the point 

 now as they were on the day they were written (Pliny, 

 " Ammian." i. 23, c. 6) : — 



