Chap. XVI. 



LEAVE SHANGPIAE. 



331 



CHAPTEK XYI. 



Leave Shangliae for the silk country — Melanclioly results of the 

 Shanghae rebellion — Country and productions about Cading — 

 Indigo and safflower — Bamboo paper-making — Insects — Lakes 

 and marshy country — Visit the town of Nan-tsin in the silk 

 districts — Its shops and inhabitants — Producers of raw silk and 

 silk merchants — Description of silk country — Soil — Method of 

 cultivating the mulberry — Valuable varieties — Increased by 

 grafting and not by seeds — Method of gathering the leaves — 

 Hills near Hoo-chow-foo — Temples and priests. 



On the evening of the eighth of June I took my 

 departure from Shanghae, en route for the great 

 silk district for which the province is famed all 

 over the world, and for the mountainous country 

 which lies to the westward of the plain of the 

 Yang-tse-kiang. As my boat proceeded rapidly 

 up the Soochow branch of the river, I soon ap- 

 proached the ground where the imperialists had 

 their principal camp during the siege of the city, 

 and where so many hundreds of poor wretches 

 were executed after the city was evacuated. It 

 was a calm and beautiful evening. The sounds of 

 civil warfare and of a camp teeming with bar- 

 barous soldiers, which had been so often heard a 

 few months before, had now passed away, — the 

 sword had been converted into the ploughshare — 

 and the husbandman was quietly engaged in the 



