156 
YANG-TSE-KIANG. 
CHAPTER VI. 
On the morning of the 19th of October, the Embassy entered 
the Yang-tse-kiang, and took leave for some time of the route 
pursued by Lord Macartney. Keeping close to the left bank, 
which was covered with high rushes used for fuel, the boats 
proceeded up the river with a scanty breeze, and anchored on 
the morning of the twentieth, after a progress of not more than 
twenty miles, in one of the many creeks which afford shelter to 
vessels navigating this river. In the evening the boats again 
moved with a favourable breeze, and passed on the following 
morning two hills, connected by a stone arch, called Quan-yin- 
mun, “ The Gate of the Goddess Quan-Yin.” On one side was 
a picturesque rock, overhung with shrubs, and crowned with trees 
surrounding a pavilion ; on the other was a romantic temple, built 
against a perpendicular rock, called the “ Iron-bound solitary 
Hill.” 
At six o’clock the Embassy reached the suburbs of Nankin, 
and anchored opposite the western gate of the city, at the dis- 
tance of two or three miles. This city, so famed for its extent, 
that the Chinese declare, if two horsemen start at break of day from 
any point of its walls, in opposite directions, and gallop round 
them, they will not meet till sun-set, is, according to authors of 
definite language, enclosed by a wall fourteen * leagues in circum- 
ference. In earlier ages the sovereigns of China made it the capital 
of the empire ; but when they transferred their residence to Pekin, 
* Memoires concernant les Cbinois, tom. ix. p. 437- 
