227 
1861.] Notes on the Biver Yang-tse-Kiang. 
gave the population as 600,000, but probably more than doubled it ; 
a Chinese will give any answer to avoid the trouble of thinking, and 
information picked up casually cannot be relied on. 
Many west country boats oome down the river as far as Shahsz’, 
bringing sugar, pepper, salt, opium, tobacco and hemp, taking back 
cotton and some of the goods imported from Canton and brought 
thus far by the Tung-ting lake and the Taiping canal which joins the 
river six or seven miles above and to which, when the river is high, 
there is a short cut opposite Shahsz’. 
Kinchow (foo) was said, by the above mentioned mandarin, to 
contain 10,000 Tartars, and too many Chinese to be counted ; tra- 
vellers by land reach it in five days from Hankow ; 2,000 men from 
the Tartar garrison were said to have been sent to Hwangchow, a 
town below Hankow, which the rebels were reported to have taken. 
Between Yochow and Shahsz’ the soundings in the channel were 
never under four fathoms, and varied from that depth to seventeen, 
near the banks being seldom under three ; a continuous line of sound- 
ings could never be procured, our course being along shore, so that 
we were only able to get a east in crossing from side to side. 
Six or seven miles above Shahsz,’ the canal before mentioned as 
connecting the lake and river, is passed ; it is called “ Hu-du-kow” 
or “ Taiping,” more commonly the latter : boats come from Yochow 
to the Yang-tse by it in five days, but make no use of it on the 
downward voyage, there being little or no stream in it ; in fair- 
weather boats go from Shahsz’ to the entrance to the lake near 
Yochow in a little over three days ; the Taiping canal at its junction 
with the river is about a hundred yards broad. 
To the West from Iviangkow, a town on the left bank and about 
two miles inland, the country becomes undulating and the river 
banks shingly ; just below this town a large ileet, of upwards of two 
hundred junks, was met conveying soldiers down to oppose the 
rebels. 
Limestone is quarried and burnt and red bricks and tiles are made 
near the village of Yungclii ; from this point the country totally 
changes its character ; from an almost dead level it becomes undu- 
lating, hilly and very shortly mountainous ; to the South West and 
North West of the town of Chikiang is a range of high mountains 
called “ Shih-urh-pei” or the hills of seven gates ; peach trees were 
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