Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 249

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Topography of Shenst.

APRIL,

chiefs of the Portuguese pursued their crafty policy with unrestrained license, until having excited the people to assemble for seditious pur- poses, the government sent out a large force, and utterly exterminated them. They then spared no pains to cut off all communication with the Portuguese (or the Western world). They have a likeness of the Lord of Heaven engraved on a brass plate, which is laid in a tho- roughfare so that all people of all nations whatsoever who go there, are obliged to trample upon it as they pass. And if any one is found to be bringing in his baggage a single article that is Portuguese, or a Portuguese book or picture, every one on board his ship is beheaded. See the abridged account of Cháng Linpih who was sent as envoy to Japan.

ART. IV. Topography of Shensi; its boundaries, area, rivers,

divisions, cities, population, productions, &c.

THE province of Shensi i. e. West of the Pass, is in one respect the most interesting of the eighteen, from its being the ori- ginal seat of the Chinese, the land where the blackhaired race first established itself, and from whence it has spread over the Inner Land. In the days of Kienlung, Shensí included the present province of Kánsuh, but it is now bounded on the west by that province; north by the desert region of the Ortous Mongols, from which the Great Wall divides it; east by Shánsí, from which the Yellow river divides it, and Honán; southeast by Húpeh; and south by Sz'chuen. It extends from lats. 32° to 39° N., and from longs. 106° to 111° E., of an ir- regular shape, but approaching a rectangle. The area has been roughly estimated at 67,400 square miles, which is nearly the same as Kwángtung, and the population in 1812 was 10,207,256, or 153 per- sons to a square mile; these data make Shensí the tenth in point of size, and the fifteenth in respect of population, of the eighteen provinces.

The surface of the country is rugged, and between the rivers Wei and Hán in the south, some of the peaks in the range of the Tsin ling rise even to the snow limit. North of the Wei, the coun- try declines to the eastward, and a lower elevation is seen in all the departments along the Yellow river. A spur of the Alashan or Holan Mts. appears in the northwest in Yenngán fú, called Móyun hing, and all the northern portion of Shensí is generally too roughi