Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The New Monthly Magazine, 1863, Vol. 127
The s nedrou being re-assembled at Nanking, two hundred geogra phical mi es from the sea, Admiral Hope left that place to continue his progress up the river on the 2nd of March. Why China, says Cap tain Blakiston, should have been called 'a vast plain' or 'enormous fertile valley, ' is to me inexplicable. More variation of surface, perhaps, does not occur in any country; and where we should be most inclined to look for such features, namely, on its great artery, there it is diversified enou h to please the most exacting of tourists. Commencing at the mout of the Yang-tsze-kiang, there is naturally a considerable extent of ?at alluvial land, the delta of the river, where once, no doubt, the ocean held its sway; but soon we come to hills and high lands, and at Chin kiang one is delighted with the steep and rugged clifi's. About N anking the country. Is prettily broken into ridges and hills, and before reaching far above this, mountains shut in the river on either hand. In fact, I think the scenery between Wu-hoo (wu-hll) and Anking (usually spelt Ngan-king) equal to that of almost any part of the river. It is, of course, not such bold and near scenery as is found on the upper waters; but the fine ranges of mountains, well removed from the river, whose broad ex panse is now broken by low islands, and now widens into lake-like form; the beautiful, partially wooded slopes of the mountains, reaching down into the hi hly cultivated lower land; the occasional village; the collee tion of res ohuts gathered on the immediate bank, as if in doubt whether the ground were as safe as the water; the distant pagoda, marking the site of a town approachable only by some narrow canal-like creek and then, life made apparent by numerous boats with their white cotton wings; the fisherman attending his ingenious dip-net; some coolies trotting along an embankment which raises them above their fellows who are working away in the irrigated paddy-fields below, while two of a more favoured class are being wheeled along a paved pathway in those best of wheelbarrows - the objects serve to remind one, -the country, of the lake scenery of the Old World, - the river of the New; but the people, of China, and China only. And then the thought comes over one, that those eaceful and industrious people are doomed to destruo tion: the edict as gone forth, kill and destroy that pagoda must fall; those villages will soon send dark volumes of smoke on high; such as have boats will ?ee, the rest must submit to slavery; fields will be laid waste, dams broken, and desolation will appear on every side; for the rule of the Taipings has begun. But the Son of the Ocean' will remain ever ebbin on its course towards its parent; those mountains cannot move; theiright Eastern sky will be above; and though govern ments and people should change, nature will be nature still.
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