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by art as completely to command the passage. Its environs were, the scene of a severe engagement between the Chinese and English, in Oct. 1841, on which occasion a great slaughter was committed upon the imperial troops.
The Chusan archipelago belongs to the department of Ningpo, and forms a single district, of which Tinghái is the capital. The district town of Tinghái lies in lat. 30° N. and long. 122° 54′ E. in the valley. of Yungtung, half a mile from the beach. It is connected with the shipping by a causey running from the gate to the suburb of Tá Tautau, where is the custom-house and principal landing-place, and by two canals deep enough for boats. The plain of Tinghái is about 24 miles from east to west, and the ridges of hills which define it are from 400 to 650 feet high. The suburb of Táutau runs along the beach, forming a long street off which the shipping lies. The harbor of Tinghái is one of the best on the coast, and accessible by three. or four passages. The tides rise and fall at times 12 feet, but; ordinarily 6 or 7 feet. The island of Chusan contains eighteen of the twenty-four chwáng or townships in the district, each of which is under the direction of constables, police-men, village elders, and assessors of taxes, who are responsible to the district magistrate.
The island of Puto and a few smaller ones are independent of the jurisdiction of the magistrate of Tinghai, being ruled by the abbot of the head monastery. This establishment, and that on Golden Is. land in the Yangtsz' kiáng, are among the richest and most exten- sively patronized of all the monasteries belonging to the Budhists in China. The island of Puto is narrow, 34 miles in length, and lies 11 miles from the eastern point of Chusan. It is covered with sixty monasteries, pavilions, temples, and other buildings, appropriated to religious uses, in which at least 2,000 priests chant the praises of their gods.
The district towns of Funghwa and Tsz'kí, lying west of Ningpo, were the scenes of skirmishes between the English and Chinese in December 1841, when large bodies of imperialists were routed and driven back upon Hángchau fú.
A town of considerable importance and trade in this province is Chapú in the department of Kiahing. It lies about fifty miles up the coast north-west from Chinhái, across Hángchau bay, and is connected with that city through a luxuriant plain by a well paved causeway about thirty miles long. Chapu is the port of Hángchau, and the only one in China whence trade is carried on with Japan. In
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