Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/346

 (or Fu) River to Kweilin, the provincial capital. This latter is connected by a canal with the Siang River, and so onwards to the Yangtse. This great river system provides complete water communication to almost every part of the province, albeit on occasions dangerous.

As regards mountains and hills, has its full share, there being no plains. To the north and west the land rises continuously—in fact, on the north there is a very abrupt rise of some thousands of feet up to the highlands of Kweichow. To its generally hilly surface are due the great and often disastrous freshets on the tributaries and the sudden rises of the great West River. This river has a maximum summer rise of 70 feet at Wuchow. Its breadth also varies from half to three-quarters of a mile, comparing not unfavourably with the Yangtse in the proportion of one to three.

Climate.—About one-third of the province lies within the Tropic of Cancer, but in spite of this it is not really tropical, although the summer is hot and somewhat damp. In the north the summer is shorter and drier, and in the winter snow and frost are by no means uncommon. In an average year January is dry; February, March, uncertain; April to June, wet; July, August, uncertain; September to December, dry. But, as elsewhere, weather forecasting is an unprofitable business. A sudden fall of temperature, as much as 20° in a few hours, when the wind suddenly changes and blows down from the highlands on the north, is a cause of much sickness resulting from chill.

Population.—Concerning Chinese populations "fools venture where wise men fear to tread." The Statesman's Year-Book gives 5,000,000. This is probably a minimum, for some estimates are as high as 10,000,000. That the population was much larger in the past than at present is evidenced by the fact that much land in many parts once cultivated is now waste. The slaughters, often wholesale, the inevitable accompaniments of rebellions with which has been cursed for sixty years or more, fully account for this decrease. Even as recently as two years