GENERAL CULTIVATION. 
203 
Of that part of China passed through by the Embassy, I may 
venture to say that the quantity of land very feebly productive in 
food for man fully equalled that which afforded it in abundant quan- 
tity. In the province of Pe-tchee-lee the banks of the river were 
often alone cultivated, and even these, when of a sandy nature, were 
left untilled. In the province of Shan-tung, great part of the land 
on both sides the canal, especially in its northern part, had “ suffered 
so severely from inundation,” that it was impossible “ to form a cor- 
rect opinion of its general appearance.”* The quantity of the Nelum- 
bium and Trapa, however, which continually appeared, renders it 
highly probable that it is at all times very swampy. The province 
of Kiang-nan, especially in its northern part, was highly fertile ; but 
towards its southern boundary it became hilly, and more productive 
in timber than in corn. The province of Kiang-si was moun- 
tainous, and although generally affording the oil, tallow, varnish, 
fir and camphor trees, frequently offered to our view, for several 
miles, no appearance of vegetable cultivation except in the hollows 
of the hills, or in the occasional fall of the land towards the river. 
In the province of Quang-tong, from the time of crossing the Mei- 
ling mountain till within two days sail of Canton, we met with little 
else than a succession of sterile mountains, which so much astonished 
the Pere Bourgeois on his first entrance into China. 
I have already stated that hills capable of terrace cultivation are 
often entirely untilled, and I may now make a similar observation, 
but with greater limitation, respecting the plains. I might here 
quote the declarations of those authors who assert that whole districts 
in China are uncultivated and uninhabited, or of those who have with 
justice pointed out the quantity of land occupied by the burying 
places of the Chinese; but I shall content myself with observing, that 
“ much land capable of tillage” -j- is “ left neglected,” and I mean land 
capable of that kind of tillage which is understood by the inhabitants. 
* Ellis’s Embassy, p. 264 . 
D D 2 
f Ibid. 
