[In his _Introductory Essay to Captain Gill’s River of Golden Sand_, Colonel Yule (p. 37) writes: “Captain Gill has pointed out that, of the many branches of the river which ramify through the plain of Ch’êng-tu, no one now passes through the city at all corresponding in magnitude to that which Marco Polo describes, about 1283, as running through the midst of Sin-da-fu, ‘a good half-mile wide, and very deep withal.’ The largest branch adjoining the city now runs on the south side, but does not exceed a hundred yards in width; and though it is crossed by a covered bridge with huxters’ booths, more or less in the style described by Polo, it necessarily falls far short of his great bridge of half a mile in length. Captain Gill suggests that a change may have taken place in the last five (this should be _six_) centuries, owing to the deepening of the river-bed at its exit from the plain, and consequent draining of the latter. But I should think it more probable that the ramification of channels round Ch’êng-tu, which is so conspicuous even on a small general map of China, like that which accompanies this work, is in great part due to art; that the mass of the river has been drawn off to irrigate the plain; and that thus the wide river, which in the 13th century may have passed through the city, no unworthy representative of the mighty Kiang, has long since ceased, on that scale, to flow. And I have pointed out briefly that the fact, which Baron Richthofen attests, of an actual bifurcation of waters on a large scale taking place in the plain of Ch’êng-tu—one arm ‘branching east to form the To’ (as in the terse indication of the Yü-Kung)—viz. the To Kiang or Chung-Kiang flowing south-east to join the great river at Lu-chau, whilst another flows south to Sü-chau or Swi-fu, does render change in the distribution of the waters about the city highly credible.”] [See _Irrigation of the Ch’eng-tu Plain_, by _Joshua Vale_, China Inland Mission in _Jour. China Br. R. A. S. Soc._ XXXIII. 1899–1900, pp. 22–36.—H. C.] [Above Kwan Hsien, near Ch’êng-tu, there is a fine suspension bridge, mentioned by Marcel Monnier (_Itinéraires_, p. 43), from whom I borrow the cut reproduced on this page. This bridge is also spoken of by Captain Gill (_l.c._ I. p. 335): “Six ropes, one above the other, are stretched very tightly, and connected by vertical battens of wood laced in and out. Another similar set of ropes is at the other side of the roadway, which is laid across these, and follows the curve of the ropes. There are three or four spans with stone piers.”—H. C.] [Illustration: Bridge near Kwan-hsien (Ch’êng-tu).]