“Imagine an amphitheatre,” says Mr. Lowrie, “thirty miles in length and twenty in breadth, hemmed in on all sides by bare pointed hills, a river running through it, an immense city at our feet, with fields of rice and sugar-cane, noble trees and numerous villages stretching away in every direction. It was grand and beautiful beyond every conception we had ever formed of Chinese scenery. Beneath us lay the city, its shape nearly square, curving a little on the river’s banks, closely built, and having an amazing number of very large trees within and around. The guide said that in the last dynasty it had numbered 700,000 inhabitants, and now he thought it contained a million--probably a large allowance. The villages around also attracted our attention. I tried to enumerate them, but after counting thirty-nine of large size distinctly visible in less than half the field before us, I gave over the attempt. It is certainly within the mark to say that within the circuit of this immense plain there are at least one hundred villages, some of them small, but many numbering hundreds and even thousands of inhabitants.”[68] Changchau was the last city in the eastern provinces held by the Tai-pings, a small remnant of their forces having come across the country after the loss of Nanking. They were expelled in 1866, after the town had suffered much from the contending forces. Traces of this destruction have not yet entirely disappeared from the vicinity. Shihma, or Chiohbé, is a place of some trade, extending a mile along the shore, and larger than Haitang hien, a district town between it and Amoy. Large numbers of people dwell in boats on this river, rendering a voyage up its channel somewhat like going through a street, for the noise and bustle. The city of Chinchew (or Tsiuenchau), north of Amoy, was once the larger of the two. It is described by Marco Polo, who reached it after five days’ journey from Fuhchau, meeting with a constant succession of flourishing cities, towns and villages. “At this city is the haven of Zayton, frequented by all the ships from India, ... and by all the merchants of Manzi, for hither is imported the most astonishing quantity of goods and of precious stones and pearls.... For it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.”[69] It was gradually forsaken for Amoy, which was more accessible to junks. From Zayton, Kublai Khan’s expedition to Java and Japan sailed, and here the men from Egypt and Arabia traded for silks, sugar, and spices long after the Portuguese reached China.