Han River

“ While thousands were thus escaping by land, thousands more were escaping by the river in junks of every size and shape, from the little ferry-boat into which were crowded fathers and mothers, perhaps grandfathers and grandmothers,—six or seven children, two or three pigs, and a heap of household furniture,—to the large-sized river-junks that seemed to be carrying forty or fifty families. Both the river and its tributary, the Han, were perfectly alive with boats and junks, the passengers having only one object in view—escape from the rebels. ”

“ While the bargaining with the would-be polemen went on, the young people had gathered within the sitting room of the sampan, that is, all with the exception of Clarence. He had stretched himself along the stern of the boat. His head was lying on his hand upheld by the elbow. Thus it was considerably elevated, and thus he had a fair view of the water all around the sampan.
The Han is often called the River of Golden Sands. It is a clear, bright stream, its bed covered with thick layers of white sand. ”

“ Baron von Richthofen noticed with surprise the number of fine country seats, owned by rich men who had retired from business, scattered over the rural districts. Almost all the traffic is conveyed through Hu-nan by water-ways, which lead northward to Han-kow on the Yangtsze Kiang, and Fan-cheng on the Han River, eastward to Fu-kien, southward to Kwang-tung and Kwang-si and westward to Sze-ch’uen. One of the leading features of the province is the Tung-t’ing lake. Yo Chow, the treaty port of the province, stands at the outlet of the river Siang into this lake. ”

“ Above Chemulpo, where the full force of the Han current is hardly felt, the velocity of the stream is quite five knots an hour. Where the breadth of the river narrows the rapidity of the flow increases. At a point, where the river makes a sudden sweep round some overhanging bluffs, which confront each other from opposite banks, the heavy volume of water thus tumbling down becomes a swirling, boisterous mill-race, as it twists and foams through its tortuous channels into another tide-swollen reach. ”

“ NATURAL BEAUTY—THE RAPIDS In superb weather, and in the full glory of spring, we continued the exploration of the Han above Tan-Yang, encountering innumerable rapids, some of them very severe and horrible to look upon. The river valley, continually narrowing into gorges, rarely admits of hamlets, and the population is relegated to lateral and parallel valleys. ”

“ It was only necessary to climb a ridge or hill to see numbers of these, given up to rice culture, and thickly sprinkled with farming villages. Along the river banks only, between Han Kang and Yöng-Chhun, there are 176 villages. Much of the soil is rich alluvium, from 5 to 11 feet deep, and most prolific, bearing two heavy crops a year (not rice lands) with little or no manure. There is on the whole an air of greater ease and prosperity about the Han valley than about any other region that I have seen in Korea. [13]
The people are of fine physique and generally robust appearance. ”

“ The Han river route becomes beyong Sing-nagn Fu a land route over the Tsingling mountains to the capital of Shen-si, and thence on to Kan-suh, Mongolia and Siberia. The Shan-si route from Peking, wholly by road, calls for no detailed account; the Manchurian route is now adequately served by railways. ”

“ On the right bank there are many villages of farmers, woodcutters, and charcoal burners, and on the left an expanse of cultivated sandy soil between the mountains and the river, there a broad rapid stream rippling brightly over white sand or golden gravel. After passing the Yang-kun magistracy, a large village with a long street, where a whole fleet of sampans was loading with country produce for the capital, and a number of junks were unloading salt, the Han makes a sharp bend to the south, and after a long rapid expands into a very broad stream. ”

“ Along the banks of the Yangtse, and for many miles along the Hwang ho, great levees have been built, some-times in reinforcing series of two or three at different distances back from the channel where the stream bed is above the adjacent country, in order to prevent widespread disaster and to limit the inundated areas in times of unusual flood. In the province of Hupeh, where the Han river flows through two hundred miles of low country, this stream is diked on both sides throughout the whole distance, and in a portion of its course the height of the levees reaches thirty feet or more. ”

“ These are the North River which falls into the West River near Canton, the East River flowing into the Canton Delta through the Tungkun plains and the northern affluents of the turbid Han, which falls into the sea near Swatow. The sources of the East River, about which little is known, are among what are probably the highest mountains in the province. Elsewhere the ranges seldom exceed 3,000 feet, though isolated peaks rise here and there one or two thousand feet higher. ”

“ HANKOW (FOREIGN SETTLEMENT) .
iANKOW, as I have already indicated, stands on the left bank of the Yangtsze, and is separated from a Hanyang by the Han, at the point where that stream falls into the Great River.
3 The foreign settlement there has a frontage to the Yangtsze, but the plot of ground on which it
has been built is unfortunately lower than that occupied by the native town. Why this site should have been selected it is impossible to tell. The mistake is one which the natives themselves would never have committed, and it has entailed great suffering during times of flood. ”

“ While they have not always succeeded in controlling the river, they have never failed to try again. In 1877 this river broke its banks, inundating a vast. area, bringing death to a million people. Again, as late as 1898, fifteen hundred villages to the northeast of Tsinan and a much larger area to the southwest of the same city were devastated by it, and it is such events as these which have won for the river the names "China's Sorrow," "The Ungovernable" and "The Scourge of the Sons of Han." ”

“ Explorations have been made in the Himalaya Mountains, with a view to a railroad across Asia. The river Han-kiang, in China, hitherto almost unknown, has been found to be of great commercial importance. For the last four years the rich and prosperous country around Tien Tsin, in China, has been lying under water from inundations to a depth of nearly five feet, and the unfortunate inhabitants of this once fertile region have been driven to seek new homes in the waste country north of the Great Wall. ”

“ The products of the Han valley are exclusively agricultural, consisting of cotton, wheat, rape seed, tobacco and various kinds of beans. Vegetable tallow is also exported in large quantities from this part of Hu-peh. Gold is found in the Han, but not in sufficient quantities to make working it more than barely remunerative. It is washed every winter from banks of coarse gravel, a little above I-chʽêng Hien, on which it is deposited by the river. Every winter the supply is exhausted by the washers, and every summer it is renewed by the river. ”

“ No mortar is used in the walls, which are very efficiently built of small slabs of stone never more than 6 inches thick. The people have no traditions of its construction, but Mr. Miller, who is familiar with the fortresses of Nam-San and Puk-han, thinks that it is of a much earlier date than either. One of the signal fire stations is visible from this point on the river.
On the 3rd of May we began the descent of the Han. The worn-out ropes were used for the cooking fire, the poles were stowed away, and paddles took their place. ”

“ December 6th.—Three P.M.—At Hankow; four weeks, almost to a minute, since we left Shanghae. We have brought this ship to a point about 600 miles from the sea,—a feat, I should think, unprecedented for a vessel of this size. We have reached the heart of the commerce of China. At first sight, I am disappointed in the magnitude of the place. I am anchored off the mouth of the river Han, which separates Hankow and Han-yang on the left bank of the Yangtze. On its right bank is Ouchang Foo. I do not see room for the eight millions of people, at which rumour puts the population of these three towns. ”

“ An earlier version of Hanoi, the dominant delta-region settlement for the Red River in what is now northern Vietnam. The route would almost certainly have involved descending to the Red River, probably down one of the valleys in the general vicinity of Jianshui or Gejiu, probably after moving south from the lakes of central Yunnan via Tonghai, then following the Red River either by foot and mule or perhaps even descending by boat. ”

“ After some stay, we set out with fresh boats and crews, and were five days passing the wild rapids between here and Wieng Chan. The river finds its way among low hills in a narrow, deep channel between clay-slate rocks alternating with sandstones and conglomerates with a general easterly dip. The rapids are of the whirlpool and eddy character, and extend for miles on end; the water is in places confined to a width of 150 feet, and the rushes, boilings, spinnings, and general deafening pandemonium which results is astounding; not one place is like another, nor one whirlpool like the next. ”

“ A mere uninviting granite rock of about 9 miles in length, 8 in breadth, and 26 in circumference, Hong-kong, situate as it is at the mouth of the Canton River, is one of the best harbours in the Chinese Empire. Owing to the barren, treeless surface, which consists for the most part of chains of hills, the highest point of which is 1825 feet above sea-level, with narrow valleys between, and a small extent of level ground around the bay, hardly a twentieth part of its surface is adapted to agriculture. ”

“ Every valley has its streamlet, and is barred across by dykes of mud from its head down to the Han, rice, with tobacco, beans, hemp, and cotton, being the great articles of export. On the whole, I was very agreeably surprised with the agriculture of the Han valley, and doubt not that it is capable of enormous development if the earnings of industry were secure. The soil is most prolific, heavy crops being raised without the aid of fertilizers. ”

“ At its mouth it is, comparatively, shallow; much of this vast body of water is diverted from its course and carried through the country in canals. We are not far, now, from the great canal which cuts across this river and the Hoang-Ho, another grand stream farther northward, with a course of two thousand six hundred and thirty miles. Between the Yang-tse-Kiang and Hoang-Ho the country is so flat that, if we may judge by the scene from the mast-head of the Phantom, not a hillock breaks the level waste of fertile land. ”

“ A small stream from the western mountains flows through the town on its way to join the river in the plain. In 1881, a terrific hailstorm swept over mountain and plain; the stream became a roaring torrent and annihilated nearly the whole town—the number of killed and drowned being estimated at a thousand souls.
Following up the stream towards its source, we attained, after a few hours’ climb, the ridge of the mountain, where the roads are worn out of the solid limestone to a depth of twelve feet by the constant traffic between the salt springs to the south-west and Ning-yuan Fu. ”

“ We have already seen, however, that underground rivers are very common in Kuei-chow and Yün-nan, and it is not impossible that the surplus waters of the lake may find their way by underground channels into the head-waters of the K’o-tu River, which is over a thousand feet below the level of the Wei-ning plain. To reach the city we skirted the eastern shore of the lake, crossing a small three-arched stone bridge which spans a rivulet draining a valley to the south-east and entering the lake. ”

“ It will be noticed that quite a network of tributary rivers take their rise in Ho Nan province, and trend in an easterly direction towards the intricate Hwai River system. The River Hwai, which has a great history in the course of Chinese development, was in quite recent times taken possession of by the Yellow River for some years, and since then the Grand Canal and the lakes between them have so impeded its natural course that it may be said to have no natural delta at all ”

“ As the travellers advanced the river grew narrower, and, with a width of three hundred yards and a depth of twenty-five fathoms, flowed through a wild and wooded valley, uninhabited except by the animals of the forest. They passed the mouth of the Nam Thon; after which they came upon a dangerous series of rapids, where the foaming waters, hurled and driven from side to side, and swung round projecting rocks, and driven against the foot of precipitous banks, rushed downwards tumultuously, with all the clang and clash of billows breaking against a reef. ”

“ The river divides the great city into two parts; that on the left bank, which is by far the larger, being Canton, and the opposite smaller town "Honan." On the Honan side, a few European gentlemen still live and carry on business, as branches of several firms in Hong-Kong; but the principal European quarter is a fine level plain on the Canton side, presenting to the river a revetted wall. ”

“ There is, indeed, a local industry of inconsiderable proportions. In the eastern part of the city are three wells, about a hundred feet deep, containing weak brine, which, on being passed through earth, leaves a saline deposit. From this, which is collected and placed in water, salt is evaporated and consumed locally. The river which drains the Yün-nan Fu lake flows north under the eastern wall of the ruined city to the Yang-tsze. ”

“ Besides causing frequently recurring floods, with immense loss of life and property, this river has a way of changing unexpectedly its bed; so lately as 1856, it turned off at right angles near the city of Kʽai-fêng, in Honan, and instead of emptying itself into the Yellow Sea about latitude 34°, found a new outlet in the Gulf of Peichili, latitude 38°.
Kʽang Hsi several times visited Hangchow, returning to Tientsin by the Grand Canal, a distance of six hundred and ninety miles. ”