Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE YANG-TSE VALLEY The British Sphere of Influence—Course of the Yang-tse Kiang—The richest Province in China—Contrasting Poverty of Kweichow—Hupeh and the great Emporium of Trade—The Province of Hunan—The Province of Kiangsi—The Province of Ngan-whei and Kiangsu—The Commercial Metropolis—Posting Infants—The Province of Honan—The Commercial Future of the Yang-tse Valley. The Yang-tse Kiang, or " Great River," as it is called in some parts by the Chinese, traverses the entire breadth of China Proper, which it divides into two nearly equal portions. The total length of this gigantic waterway is estimated at 2,900 miles; while the enormous area of 548,000 square miles—a space in which the German Empire, France, Great Britain and Ireland could be comfortably accommodated—measures the extent of the Yang-tse basin. This vast expanse of country does not, however, represent the limits recently claimed for British influence by our ambassador at Peking, who demanded the recognition by the Tsungli Yamen of " the Yang-tse'region, and the provinces adjoining the Yang-tse," as constituting the area of British interest . It was recently announced in the House of Commons that this liberal definition may be taken to include the basins of the Yang-tse's tributaries, and we therefore find ourselves dominating—or attempting to dominate—territories comprising not less than 700,000 square miles, exclusive of the province of Yunnan. From its sources on the eastern side of Tibet, the Upper ts Yang-tse flows through magnificent gorges and ravines down to the important trading centre of Ichang, in the province of Hupeh. At this point the river flows out into a broad valley, and continues its course, which for a couple of hundred miles is very tortuous, between high embankment...