Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 537

1850.

Topography of the Yellow River.

499

ART. V. Course and topography of the Hwáng ho or Yellow river. Tuis great river is regarded by the Chinese with peculiar feelings, amounting almost to a superstitious reverence; its sources lie in the region of spirits and genii, and its rapid current, its strangely ting- ed waters, its devious channel, and above all, the awful devasta- tions caused by the overflowing of its banks, conspire to give it a mysterious character. The name Hwang ho, or Yellow river, is applied through its whole course, and on common Chinese maps

it is usually painted yellow; this appellation is given from the color of its waters, obtained when flowing through the clayey soil of the Ortous territory. Such is the depth of tinge, and the strength of the current, that the bay which lies between China and Japan is turbid and yel- lowish from the waters of this river, and has been usually known as the Yellow Sea on foreign maps. The river is also called the ho jus par excellence, just as the Yangtsz' kiáng is termed the kiáng I.

The Yellow river is shorter than the Yángtsz', and also less useful for purposes of navigation and irrigation than its rival. It takes its rise in the snow covered mountains which form the western boundaries of Koko-uor in a depression between the ranges of the Bayankara Mts. on the south, and the Kwanlun on the north. In this low spot, more than a hundred springs are stated to rise from a level plain about forty miles in circumference; seen froin an eminence these springs and pools are thought to resemble stars, and hence the tract has been called Sing- suh háior Sea of Constellations by the Chinese, and Ho- tun tala by the Mongols. A small stream flows in from the west into this swampy district, called on Chinese maps Alotan ho

阿克但河, whose headwaters are named Horyuen 河源;

these take their rise at the base of a lofty peak called Mt. Katasu-káulau

喝達素齊煮11.

* This mountain is situated about lat. 35°

N., and long. 95° E. The authority of Pinkerton quoted by the poet Moore for the lines,

"Though bright are the waters of Sing-su-hay,

And the golden floods that thitherward stray,"

will not, we fear, be enough to remove the cold desolation and icy barrenness which surround the sources of the Yellow river; while the golden floods of the "Altan Kol, or Golden River of Tibet," of which the geographer speaks, seem to have no existence according to other authorities. An explanation of the error is furnished in a letter of Amiot's given in the “ Mémoires,” Tome X, page 137. From this