montory,
about lat. 38 N.

A certain number of connecting links have been formed between the chief
lines of water communication, in the shape of artificial cuttings; but
there is nothing worthy the name of canal except the rightly named Grand
Canal, called by the Chinese the "river of locks," or alternatively the
"transport river," because once used to convey rice from the south to
Peking. This gigantic work, designed and executed in the thirteenth
century by the Emperor Kublai Khan, extended to about six hundred
and fifty miles in length, and completed an almost unbroken water
communication between Peking and Canton. As a wonderful engineering feat
it is indeed more than matched by the famous Great Wall, which dates
back to a couple of hundred years before Christ, and which has been
glorified as the last trace of man's handiwork on the globe to fade from
the view of an imaginary person receding into space. Recent exploration
shows that this wall is about eighteen hundred miles in length,
stretching from a point on the seashore somewhat east of Peking, to the
northern frontier of Tibet. Roughly speaking, it is twenty-two feet in
height by twenty feet in breadth; at intervals of a hundred yards are
towers forty feet high, the whole being built originally of brick, of
which in some parts but mere traces now remain. Nor is this the only
great wall; ruins of other walls on a considerable scale have lately
been brought to light, the object of all being one and the same--to keep
back the marauding Tartars.

Over the length and breadth of their boundless empire, with all its
varying climates and inhabitants, the Chinese people are free to travel,
for business or pleasure, at their own sweet will, and to take up their
abode at any spot without let or hindrance. No passports are required;
neither is any ordinary citizen obliged to possess other papers of
identification. Chinese inns are not exposed to the annoyance of
domicilary visits with reference to their clients for the time being;
and so long as the latter pay their way, and refrain from molesting
others, they will usually be free from molestation themselves. The
Chinese, however, are not fond of travelling; they love their homes too
well, and they further dread the inconveniences and dangers attached
to travel in many other parts of the world. Boatmen, carters, and
innkeepers have all of them bad reputations for extortionate charges;
and the traveller may sometimes happ