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gress or egres, and he must usually pay two or three cash to the keeper for permission to pass. To the foreigner however, no`such key is needed to secure that freedom which is denied to the Chinese. The water gates,—Shwui mun, as they are called are four in num- ber, opening a water communication, with the inoat surrounding the city, by ditches passing under the walls. Three of these water gates are on the east side of the city, one near each of the three gates al- ready described; and the fourth is on the west close by the gate on that side. Originally they were evidently so constructed that they could be opened and closed with facility. Such is not their present condition, being now inade fast in the mud that has accumulated around them and half filled the several ditches.
The canals, ditches, moats, etc, which surround the walls, pass under them through the four water gates and thence to the principal quarters of the city, could hardly exist at all, and be in a worse con- dition than that in which we now see them. Indeed some of them are filled with mud and refuse matter, so that you may pass over hign stone bridges, under which were once deep channels filled with water sufficient for large boats, but where now there is nothing but earth and filth piled up to the very key-stones. One might naturally expect that these water-courses would all be keptin the best possible condition, as in that case they would contribute so much to the health and comfort of the inhabitants, istead of being left to becoine, as many of them are, intolerable nuisances,-at least so they would be considered in any other than Chinese cities. Once doubtless theywere, or at least some of them, in a much better condition than at present; and historians speak of them as being sixty feet broad; but at present they are not more than fifteen or twenty feet, and in some places not more than twelve.
The moat which surrounds the city, outside of the walls, was pro- bably opened out by human industry, at the time when the walls were erected, the excavated earth being used to form the rampart. The others, for the most part, appear to have been natural channels, and the shape of the city so formed as to take advantage of them for artificial purposes. That such has been the case is made very evident by a reference to some of the old maps of Shinghái as it existed when it was merely a chin or market town, prior to the building of the walls. These channels were then called pång, L, and among them where the following; first on the south sieh kiú páng,
浜 A second chúa kia phuong o n : and third, on the north.
fing páng all these communicating distinctly with the great
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