126 THE SOIL AND ITS PRODUCTIONS. [Cuap. VIII. 
same isolated character, far away on the horizon, 
to the south; these, I have since ascertained, are 
near the Tartar city of Chapoo. All the rest of the 
country was a vast level plain, without a mountain 
or a hill to break the monotony of the view. The 
soil is arich deep loam, and produces heavy crops 
of wheat, barley, rice, and cotton, besides an im- 
mense quantity of green vegetable crops, such as 
cabbages, turnips, yams, carrots, egg-plants, cu- 
cumbers and other articles of that kind which are 
grown in the vicinity of the city. The land, al- 
though level, is generally much higher than the 
valleys amongst the hills, or the plain round Ning- 
po; and, consequently, it is well adapted for the 
cultivation of cotton, which is, in fact, the staple 
production of the district. Indeed this is the great 
Nanking cotton country, from which large quantities 
of that article are generally sent in junks to the 
north and south of China, as well as to the neigh- 
bouring islands. Both the white kind, and that 
called the “ yellow cotton,” from which the yellow 
Nanking cloth is made, are produced in the district. 
The soil of this district is not only remarkably 
fertile, but agriculture seems more advanced, and 
bears a greater resemblance to what it is at home, 
than in any part of China which I have seen. One 
here meets with a farm-yard containing stacks re- 
gularly built up and thatched in the same form and 
manner as we find them in England; the land, too, 
is ridged and furrowed in the same way ; and were 
it not for plantations of bamboo, and the long tails 
