Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/298

 subject. Those who wish further information will do well to study his report, where the products are arranged under the three main divisions of— (a) Agricultural and horticultural products. (b) Animal products. (c) Minerals and mineral products. Communications.— lies at the very back of China proper, but its remoteness would be of less consequence were it readily and easily accessible. Unfortunately it is not so. While it is true that has magnificent waterways, and several of the larger rivers might have small light-draught steamers plying between the more important centres of trade, yet as long as the journey from Ichang to Chungking—a distance of a little more than 400 miles—remains an unsolved problem to the merchants of the west, and railways are only on paper, communication with the outside, and even between remote parts of the province itself, must continue to present grave difficulties to the trade and progress of the province.

Mission work in the province of Szechwan may be divided into five distinct periods as follows:—

I. Prospecting Period (1868-1877).—Previous to the year 1868 little or nothing was known by the Protestant Churches of Europe and America about this vast province of the west of China. The first Protestant missionaries to visit this province were the Rev. Dr. Griffith John of the London Missionary Society and Mr. Wylie of the British and Foreign Bible Society. These two workers, having