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EAST ASIA.
Shantung, Shansi, Shensi, Kansu, Honan and some of the deposits are con-
veniently situated on the river banks, whence the produce can be easily exported
water to the seaboard. The anthracite basins of Honan alone cover an area of
by
over 21,000 square miles, so that one of the most agricultural regions on the globe
offers every element of future industrial development.
TOPOGRAPHY.
The Hoang-ho basin has in recent times suffered so much from the ravages of
civil war, inundations, and long droughts, followed by famine and pestilence, that
not even an approximate estimate can be formed of its present population. The
country, however, appears to be rapidly recovering from these disasters, and
according to the reports of recent travellers, the towns and villages are again
everywhere assuming their normal appearance. Thanks to the introduction of the
potato plant, some of the upland valleys hitherto uninhabited are now receiving
numerous settlers, and at the present rate of increase the Hoang-ho basin will in a
few decades be again peopled by some eighty millions, as it was before the
Mohammedan insurrection and the bursting of the Kaifung-fu embankments.
Gomi, the most elevated town on the Hoang-ho, was recently visited by
Prjevalsky. It stands at an altitude of 8,000 feet on the extreme verge of the
cultivated zone, which is here succeeded by the wooded tracts where the blue pheasant
is indigenous. Sining-fu, lying east of the Kuku-nor, on the left bank of the
Sining, is the capital of Kansu, and residence of the authorities, who administer
the Tangut and Mongol populations of the Kuku-nor region. Its position at the
north-east corner of the Tibetan plateaux, and near the historic route to the Tarim
basin and Zungaria, renders it strategically and commercially a place of great
importance. But the wide circuit of its walls now encloses many ruins, while
much of its trade has been transferred to Donkir, some 24 miles farther west.
Here the Eastern Tibetans and Si-Fan tribes assemble to exchange their rhubarb,
hides, wool, live stock, and minerals for provisions and other supplies. Amongst
these varied and unruly elements the exchanges are not always effected without
bloodshed ; the dealers go armed, and disputes about the market prices sometimes
end in free fights. This region is sacred in the eyes of the Tibetan and Mongol
Buddhists, as the birthplace of the great reformer, Tsonkhapa, and amongst the
lamassaries held in special reverence is Kunbum, which lies south of Sining, oil a
wooded terrace near the deep gorge of the Hoang-ho. Before the recent
Mohammedan and Si-Fan troubles this place contained 4,000 lamas, and its
university comprises four schools devoted to the study of the occult sciences,
ceremony, prayer, and the art of healing the "four hundred and forty ailments of
mankind." One of the chief remedies is the foliage of a sacred tree, a species of
elder, growing in front of the great temple, every leaf of which is said to bear a
representation of Buddha and various characters of the sacred Tibetan alphabet.
Hue fancied he saw this marvel, and Szechenyi,. after much inquiry, was shown
a leaf on which had been traced the rude outlines of a figure of Buddha.