66 PLOUGH, AND WATER-WHEEL. [Cuar. V. 
feet high, with yellow flowers, and long pods of seed 
like all the cabbage tribe. In April, when the 
fields are in bloom, the whole country seems tinged 
with gold, and the fragrance which fills the air, 
particularly after an April shower, is delightful. 
The small ox-plough, and the celebrated water- 
wheel ‘which is here worked by hand, are the two 
principal implements in husbandry; the plough 
seems a rude thing, but it answers the purpose 
remarkably well, and is probably better for the 
Chinese in their present state, with their oxen and 
buffaloes, than our more improved implement. An 
immense quantity of water is raised with great 
ease by the water-wheel, and is made to flow into 
the different rice flats with great rapidity. I have 
often stood for a considerable time looking on and 
admiring the simplicity and utility of this contri- 
vance. | 
The flora of Chusan, and all over the main land 
in this part of the province of Chekiang, is very 
different from that of the south. Almost all the 
species of a tropical character have entirely dis- 
appeared, and in their places we find others related 
to those found in temperate climates in other parts 
of the world. I here met, for the first time, the 
beautiful Glycine sinensis wild on the hills, where it 
climbs among the hedges and on trees, and its 
flowering branches hang in graceful festoons by the 
sides of the narrow roads which lead over the moun- 
tains. The Ficus nitida, so common around all 
the houses and temples in the south, is here un- 
