the plain is permanently under water, but it was the drought in
the winter and the rains in the summer of successive years that caused
the famine. There are no Mohammedans in the town--there have been none
since the rebellion--but there are many small Mohammedan villages across
the hills. No district in China is now more peaceful than the Valley of
Tongchuan. The Yangtse River--"The River of Golden Sand"--is only two
days distant, but it is not navigable even by Chinese boatmen. Sugarcane
grows in the Yangtse Valley in little pockets, and it is from there that
the compressed cakes of brown sugar seen in all the markets of Western
Yunnan are brought. Coal comes from a mine two or three days inland;
white-wax trees provide an important industry; the hills to the west
contain the most celebrated copper mines in the empire.

The cash of Tongchuan are very small and inferior, 2000 being equivalent
to one tael, whereas in Chaotong, 110 miles away, the cash vary from
1260 to 1640 the tael. Before the present Prefect took office the cash
were more debased still, no less than 4000 being then counted as one
tael, but the Prefect caused all these cash to be withdrawn from
circulation.

Unlike Chaotong, no children are permitted to be sold in the city, but
during last year no less than 3000 children (the figures are again
Chinese) were carried through the town on their way from Chaotong to the
capital. The edict of the Prefect which forbids the selling of children
increases the cases of infanticide, and in time of famine there are few
mothers among the starving poor who can truthfully assert that they have
never abandoned any of their offspring.

The subject of infanticide in China has been discussed by a legion of
writers and observers; and the opinion they come to seems to be
generally that the prevalence of the crime, except in seasons of famine,
has been enormously overstated. The prevalent idea with us Westerns
appears to be, that the murder of their children, especially of their
female children, is a kind of national pastime with the Chinese, or, at
the best, a national peculiarity. Yet it is open to question whether the
crime, excepting in seasons of famine, is, in proportion to the
population, more common in China than it is in England. H. A. Giles of
H.B.M. Chinese Consular Service, one of the greatest living authorities
on China, says "I am unable to believe that infanticide prevails to any
great extent in China.... In