Po River

“ From the other source, but much lower down, rises the Po itself, large and rapid, which as it advances becomes still vaster, and at the same time more gentle. As it reaches the plains it increases in breadth, being augmented by numerous [other rivers] , and thus it becomes less impetuous in its course, and its current is weakened. Having become the largest river in Europe, with the exception of the Danube,1522 it discharges itself into the Adriatic Sea. The Medulli are situated considerably above the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone. ”

“ It is well known that the channel of the Po, as it approaches its embochure, is considerably elevated above the surrounding country. The earth which it washes down from the Alps is gradually deposited where the river runs more slowly. ”

“ Thus in the valley of the Tsangpo a continuous displacement of solid matter from west to east is going on. It is not alone that the river excavates the bed with its own weight, and loads its water with masses of mud; but also the material deposited at the banks is borne away by the wind which comes to the help of the water. Wind and flowing water work together in harmony to the same end, washing out this gigantic drainage channel deeper and deeper. They have laboured at the work for untold thousands of years, and the result is the Tsangpo valley as we see it to-day. ”

“ The Po even now frequently overflows and devastates its banks; the inhabitants, provided always for the calamity which unfortunately is not unfrequent, take to their boats and wait till the inundation has subsided. There would seem to be little doubt that at some day not far distant, the whole delta of the Po, or Polesino, as it is called, will become one wide and wretched marsh. Even now the roads are often impassable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The snow enveloped us, whirled about us, and piled itself into small drifts on the sheltered side of every stone, grassy hillock, and hollow. The valley slopes gently to the south-east, and its frozen river is called Buser-tsangpo, and is a tributary of the Tagrak-tsangpo, which debouches into the south-western corner of the Ngangtse-tso. We are therefore still in the basin, of which the lake occupies the lowest part, and of which the border on the north-west and east lies close to the lake, but on the south is removed many days’ journey from it. ”

“ On the left side of the valley, where we march, are a couple of walls of green and black schist, but elsewhere old moraines extend on all sides. We cross a stream flowing from the country below Dongdong to join the Kubi-tsangpo. The Tsechung-tso is a small moraine lake. The valley bottom rises slowly, and consists of loose material sparsely covered with grass. Occasionally a small erratic block of grey granite is seen. Rags, dung, and fragments of bone lie on the summer camping-grounds. At length the river becomes as broad as a small lake, enclosed in morainic rubbish and driftsand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The finer dust among which these pebbles are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed into continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, however pure their waters may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great chain, they become of the color and opacity of clay before they reach the Adriatic; the sediment which they bear is at once thrown down as they enter the sea, forming a vast belt of low land along the eastern coast of Italy. The powerful stream of the Po of course builds forward the fastest ”

“ At length we made the last ascent up to the top of the pass, where the height is 17,851 feet above sea-level. At the other side a river runs north-east, one of the headwaters of the Raga-tsangpo. To the west there is a brilliant spectacle, the summits of Lunpo-gangri rising in sharp and savage beauty from a maze of mountains and ridges, which shine in lighter bluer shades the more remote they are. To the north-east we catch a glimpse of an outlying ridge covered from foot to crest with new-fallen snow. The broad flat valley of the Raga-tsangpo stretches eastwards as far as the eye can see. ”

“ Whittier was present at these picnics whenever able, and, as has been said, sometimes wrote a poem to be read there. He never reads in public himself.
Although the Powow river has been made so emphatically a stream of use, there are glimpses of a native beauty in it that its hard fate has never obliterated; these are still there, as one stands upon the little bridge that spans its last few rods of individual life and looks up the stream upon a wintry landscape, or upon summer fields, and longingly toward the bend. ”

“ From the top of this palace a noble view of the plain of the Po represents itself, and you see the meanderings of that King of Rivers, as the Italian poets term it. As the Po runs thro' a perfectly flat country, and is encreased and swollen by the torrents from the Alps and Appennines that fall into the smaller rivers, which unite their tributary streams with the Po and accompany him as his seguaci to the Adriatic, this country is liable to the most dreadful inundations: flocks and herds, farm-houses and sometimes whole villages are swept away. ”

“ We draw near to a small projecting height, behind which the road runs to Kangan and Leh. Side branches debouch into the canal, but we make for a lake called Anchar; its water is greyish blue, and comes from the Sind, or Send as they here pronounce the name of the river.
After a while eddies and sandbanks show that we are in the river. The sun has set; the summer evening is quiet and peaceful, only the gnats buzz over the water.
Though the rowers work steadily, putting forth all their strength, we make slow progress, for the current is strong 33 against us. ”

“ From this vomitory the old glacier poured into the plains of the Po that wonderful accumulation of mud, gravel, boulders, and large erratics, which extend for 15 miles from above Ivrea to below Caluso and which when seen in profile from Turin have the aspect of a chain of hills. In many countries, indeed, they might rank as an important range of hills, for where they join the mountains they are more than 1500 feet high, and retain more than half that height for a great part of their course, rising very abruptly from the plain, often with a slope of from 20 to 30 degrees. ”

“ Passed a creek on the south, the mouth of which is nearly concealed by a large sand-island of singular appearance. Went about fifteen miles beyond this. The highlands now recede from the river, and are probably from ten to twenty miles apart. On the north is a good deal of fine timber, but on the south very little. Near the river are beautiful prairies, and along the banks we procured four or five different species of grape, all of good flavor and quite ripe; one is a large purple grape of excellent quality. ”

“ The navigable portion from Casale Monferrato to the mouth is 337 m., the minimum width of this portion 656 ft., and its minimum depth 7 ft. Owing to the prevalence of shallows and sandbanks, navigation is difficult.
The Po is the dominating factor in north Italian geography, north Italy practically consisting of the Po basin, with the surrounding slopes of the Alps and Apennines. For a description of its course, and a list of its principal tributaries see Italy. The area of its basin, which includes portions of Switzerland and Austria, is estimated at 26,798 sq. ”

“ As they ascended the river the party encountered occasional rapids which caused some delay, particularly the Meductic rapids below the mouth of the Pokiok, where they were obliged to land and carry their baggage over clefts of rocks, fallen trees and other obstacles. The Indians told Pote they would shortly arrive at another Indian village and he asked, with some anxiety, if the Indians there would use them in the same manner as those at Aukpaque. ”

“ But I should think it more probable that the ramification of channels round Ch’êng-tu, which is so conspicuous even on a small general map of China, like that which accompanies this work, is in great part due to art; that the mass of the river has been drawn off to irrigate the plain; and that thus the wide river, which in the 13th century may have passed through the city, no unworthy representative of the mighty Kiang, has long since ceased, on that scale, to flow. ”

“ It is with no little misgiving that we see the river enter these black, hard walls. At its very entrance we have to make a portage; then let down with lines past some ugly rocks. We run a mile or two farther, and then the rapids below can be seen.
About eleven o'clock we come to a place in the river which seems much worse than any we have yet met in all its course. A little creek comes down from the left. We land first on the right and clamber up over the granite pinnacles for a mile or two, but can see no way by which to let down, and to run it would be sure destruction. ”

“ From Calcutta to Khyook Phyoo, Yule proceeded by steamer, and thence up the river in the Tickler gunboat to Krenggyuen. “Our course lay through a wilderness of wooded islands (50 to 200 feet high) and bays, sailing when we could, anchoring when neither wind nor tide served ... slow progress up the river. More and more like the creeks and lagoons of the Niger or a Guiana river rather than anything I looked for in India. The densest tree jungle covers the shore down into the water. ”

“ The mouths of these ravines, where they debouche upon the river, have a very remarkable appearance, and look from the opposite bank, by moonlight, like gigantic columns standing erect upon the shore. To an observer from the uppermost terrace the whole descent towards the stream has an indescribably chaotic and dreary air. No vegetation of any kind is seen. ”

“ This magnificent stream, though it is unnavigable owing to frequent rapids, has stretches miles long, down which a man-of-war could steam, and after its junction with the Elands’ River it grows larger and larger till, pursuing a north-east course, it at length falls into the mighty Limpopo. ”

“ In my experience natives always take hot baths. But only the poorer classes go to the public baths; the tradespeople and middle classes are generally supplied by the bath-houses with hot water at a moderate charge.”
Note 9.—The estuary of the Ts’ien T’ang, or river of Hang-chau, has undergone great changes since Polo’s day. The sea now comes up much nearer the city; and the upper part of the Bay of Hang-chau is believed to cover what was once the site of the port and town of Kanp’u, the Ganpu of the text. ”

“ 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, with other tributary ponds, cover about twelve square miles surface, discharging through a comparatively small stream, yet one carrying a large volume of water. This is the Fall River, dammed at the outlet of the ponds, and barely two miles long, but running so steeply down hill that within about eight hundred yards distance it descends one hundred and thirty-six 129 feet, thus being appropriately named, and in turn giving its name to the town gathered around this admirable water-power. ”

“ The latter, 50 m. long and about 5 m. broad, is a deep depression in the undulating country of south-west Posen. The river is here dammed in and canalized and affords excellent water transit for the agricultural produce of the district. ”

“ Perhaps it would have been more deliberately stated in a later volume if Powell's intention of describing more fully the three chief kinds of drainage of the region had been carried out.8 Not having seen the region, my comments may have little value; but the context of Powell's report, the description of the immense series of lacustrine beds, over a mile thick, north of the mountains, and the eastward deflection of the river where it traverses the mountains all seem to me to indicate that the Green was by no means continuously successful in maintaining its antecedent course across the uplift. ”

“ The channel, 200 or 300 fathoms wide, which unites the Wusung with the internal network of small rivers, is called the Wuang-Po, a designation which some authorities assume to be the name of its constructor, while others maintain that it is derived from wong, yellow, and applies to the colour of the water, just as Whampoa, near Canton, signifies the yellow anchorage. Nothing has so much contributed to that immense activity of commerce, which we marvel at among the Chinese, as their vast canal system, the introduction of which was pursued with such energy in the 7th century. ”