The Yangtse Chiang Author(s): W. R. Carles Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep., 1898), pp. 225-240 Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1774310 . Accessed: 09/02/2015 23:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 9 Feb 2015 23:03:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The GeographicalJournal. No. 3. SEPTEMIBER, 1898. VOL. XII. THE YANGTSE CHIANG.' By W. R. CARLES, H B.M. Consul at Swatau. THE great river of China which foreigners call the Yangtse Chiang, has its sources on the south-east edge of the great steppes which form Central Asia. Rising almost due north of Calcutta, it flows eastward for some 500 miles, draining a very considerable area on its way, and then turns southwards until it is penned in by the great parallel ranges which until recent years have hidden it and its great neighbours from European eyes. Even after entering China its course has remained obscure, and the deep rift through which it makes its way to the navigable portion of its waters in Sze Chuen is, save here and there, still unexplored. In the eastern half of Sze Chuen it receives the drainage of another large area, before entering the country commonly known as the Ichang Gorges, and on leaving the Gorges its arms spread north and south from the Yellow river to the Canton province, affording easily navigable routes through the heart of China, and by the Grand canal to Tientsin. One of the largest rivers in the world, its importance to China as a waterway in some of the wealthiest and most thickly populated pro- vinces of the empire completely overshadows all the other river-systems of the country. The actual length of the Yangtse Chiang is at present unknown. The navigable portion, i.e. to Ping-shan Hsien, is 1550 miles. West of Ping- shan Hsien the river attains its extreme southern and northern limits; but from a careful measurement made for rue of the best maps owned by * The system of spelling Chinese names in this paper is in accordance with the rules of the Royal Geograplical Society, and it is only fair to the author to state that he prefers the system introduced by Sir Thomas Wade. Map, p. 336. NO. III.-SEPTEMBER, 1898.] Q This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 9 Feb 2015 23:03:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 226 THE YANGTSE CHIANG. the Royal Geographical Society, its entire length is not much more than 3000 miles. The estimate made* by Dr. H. B. Guppy, R.N., of the probable discharge of the river, places the discharge of water into the Yellow sea at 770,000 cubic feet per second, and the total amount of suspended material carried to the sea every year at 6,428,858,255 cubic feet. Hankau, where Dr. Guppy collected his data for forming this estimate, is not so perfect a position as might be found lower down the river, e.g. at Chinkiang, for a large portion of the annual floods at Hankau finds its way across the plain to the river far below the city. The area of drainage is probably between 650,000 and 700,000 square miles. Of the meaning of the name Yangtse Chiang more than enough has been written. The name is derived from one of the ancient Divisions of China near the coast, and is applied by Chinese only to the tidal portion of the river. Popular as is its name of " Son of the Ocean," there is no good authority for its use. The name in common use by the French, " Le Fleuve Bleu," is very difficult of explanation. The only explanation of which I know is that in Reclus' 'Geographie Universelle': " Ses eaux sont jaunes d'alluvions cornmmecelles du Hoang-ho; mais tandis que ce dernier fleuve est compare a la terre, ' au principe femelle' dont la couleur symbolique est le jaune, le Yangtze serait, d'apres quelques commentateurs, le Fils du Principe male, c'est a dire du ciel; par consequent le nom de Fleuve Bleu, que lui donnent les anciens mis- sionaires et qui est encore tres usite en Europe se trouverait justifi6, puisque ]'azur est la couleur du ciel." But there must be some simpler explanation, and one resting on a more solid foundation. For the purpose of the present paper, I have treated the whole river as though the name Yangtse Chiang were applicable to it, as that is the name by which it is best known to Europeans, but to Chinese it is the River, the Great River, or the Long River, and the names applied to it locally are almost unknown except to geographers. In the following notes I have attempted to throw together some of the additions made to our knowledge in the last fifty years of the main river and its tributaries, and to give some idea of how large a mass of China is comprised in the "Yangtse Chiang valley." As I have no library at hand to refer to,t there are necessarily imperfections in the paper, for which I would ask indulgence. " The most remarkable journeys ever made by a European in Tibet were achieved by a Dutchman, who went from India, by Lhasa, to Peking, and returned by the same route. "This traveller was Samuel Van de Putte.... Father Horace della Penna, in one of his letters, quotes a passage from the journal of Van de * N.C. Branch of R.A.S., 1881, pp. 5, 6. t The paper was written at Fuchau. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 9 Feb 2015 23:03:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE YANGTSE CHIANG. 227 Patte, in which he describes the passage of the river Biciu (Bi-tsiou), the upper course of the Yangtse Chiang: ' The river is so large that, to cross it in boats of skin, he embarked in the morning and landed on an island in the evening, and could not complete the passage across till the middle of the following day."' This was between 1723 and 1736, and the place where this remark- able traveller crossed the river was probably in about lat. 34?, long. 94?, about 2500 miles from its mouth. Little more was learnt by European travellers of the higher waters of the Yangtse Chiang until, in 1845, Peres Huc and Gabet crossed it, probably near the same place. The difficulties of the passage had been smoothed for them by winter, but they also had a remarkable experience. "We had previously, from our encampment (on the bank of the river), observed dark shapeless masses ranged across this great river; and it was not until we came quite close to these fantastic islets that we could at all make head or tail of them. Then we found out that they were neither more nor less than upwards of fifty wild cattle absolutely encrusted in the ice, . which was so transparent as to give a full view of the form and position of the unlucky animals, which looked as though they were still swimming." t On their return journey these travellers recrossed the river at a point much lower down 4 on their way from Chiamdo to Ta-chien-lu, near where Mr. T. T. Cooper crossed the river in 1868. It was in 1873 that the first scientific explorer, Colonel Prjevalsky, struck the river in lat. 34? 43', long. 94? 48', and 13,143 feet above the sea. He found it impassable, and writes of it as a rapid torrent fordable in autumn after the floods have gone down, but only in a few places, with an average depth of 5 to 7 feet, and a width, at the spot where he saw it, near the confluence of the Murui-usu with the Napchitai-ulan- muren, of 750 feet; but the whole river-bed from bank to bank was upwards of a mile wide, and, as his guide assured him, this was entirely covered during the rainy season in summer, when the river sometimes overflows its banks.? Naturally enough, the obstacle which had turned him back in 1873 attracted him there again, and in 1879-80 he crossed and recrossed at a higher point-first the Napchitai-ulan-muren in lat. 35? 20', long. 93? 10'; then the other large tributary, the Toktonai-ulan-muren, in lat. 31? 10', long. 92? 40'; and, finally, the Murui-usu itself in lat. 33? 50', long. 92? 20', one of the affluents of which he followed up almost to its source in the Tang-la mountains, at a height of 16,400 feet. In 1884 Colonel Prjevalsky again visited the river near long. 96?; and in 1889 Mr.