Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/70

 66 Ling-Nam. continual moisture, hang richly over the walls, and within are stone seats on which to rest while listening to the music of the waters, and watching the sunlight break into rainbow colours through the falling spray. A native

poet of some repute has described the scene in a couplet—

“ Below the bridge, three streams their flows divided pour ; Above, the heavens are seen as through en open door.”

Around the base of these hills, and for miles on all sides, the land is covered with mulberry plantations. The aggregate of many small interests go to make up this vast industry, and the division of labour affords cmploy- ment for all ages and sexes. The mulberry shrubs are eut down in winter every year and used for fuel. The roots remain, and around them the soil is spaded and heavily fertilised. The surplus moisture is drained off into fish ponds, sank deep in the midst of the fields. The young shoots sprout with the opening spring; and when the first erop of leaves is ready, usually in April, thousands of boys, women, and girls are employed to strip them off, and pack them in baskets. Hundreds of men, in little boats propelled by paddles, dart back and forth along the canals, carrying these baskets of leaves to the market-places, where they are weighed by men detailed for that purpose, and purchased by the owners of silkworms. In some of the larger plantations cocooneries are found, but the silkworms are usually reared in the houses of the people in greater or less quantities, as they can afford. A crop of leaves matures every six weeks, in which time also a fresh brood of silkworms hatches out. The utmost yield of leaves is