1542.
Notices of the Pei Ho
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inouths past the Chinese have been directing their attention to that spot; have thrown up numerous and strong defenses; and have there assembled large bodies of troops. The scale, on which these works have been conducted, may be conjectured from what has been found at Canton, Amoy, Chusan, and Chiuhái. The site being nearer the capital than the above named places, it becomes naturally a source of deeper interest, and ere it can be reached by the invading forces, will have been made very strong. Battery after battery will have been erected, and a variety of means devised to render the channel of the river impracticable. If attacked, however, we know what must be the fate of all these defenses. The lines once broken, and consterna- tion excited, the capital will become the next object.
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Above Tientsin the river is gradually contracted in its dimensions, and the stream becomes more powerful. The tide, of which the flood had aided the progress of the yachts conveying Macartney's embassy, ceased about thirty miles beyond the city. The embassy was six days in passing from Ticutsin to Tungchau; and it was not until the ourth day that “some high blue mountains were seen rising from the northwest.' On this small branch of the river, within a distance of uinety miles, Barrow estimated that there were floating not less than 100,000 souls. As the embassy advanced, the country began to assume a less uniform appearance, being now broken into hill and dale. Few trees appeared, except large willows on the banks, and knots of elins or firs before the houses of distinguished men, and the temples—both of which were generally found at the head of each village. More grain was cultivated here than on the plains near the mouth of the river. Different sorts of kidney-beans, and some patches of buck-wheat, also, were observed, and a species of nettle, the Urtica niveu, of which cloth is manufactured. Considerable tracts of pas. ture or meadow land intervened between the villages, on which were seen a few small cattle, and some of the broad-tailed sheep.
Here may be noted-what all the travelers seem to have omitted, that the Pei ho enters the sea, or gulf, through two channels. The embassies ascended the southern one. The northern is marked on native maps as being broader than the other, and runs nearly parallel to it, until some miles above Tientsin, where the two unite. On one of our Chinese maps this northern channel is forked, one branch coming from the Pei ho, say thirty miles below Tungchau, and the other twenty miles lower down. This northern channel (probably a marshy expanse) is impracticable for boats of any considerable size.
The city of Tungchau stands on the southern side of the river by
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Yol XI NO
1.