Szech'wan

I have not been on the North China highways, but have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

As I sipped my tea and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I admired the grand scenery farther along.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings, some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass and water buffalo.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden of China.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

It may, perhaps, be said that this "new people" were born after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

The latter is supposed to be one of the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous, void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

I do not wish to enter into a controversy on this subject, but I should like to quote the following from a speech delivered by Tseh Ch'un Hsüan, when he was leaving his post as Governor of Szech'wan: --

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in this great Garden of the Empire.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926