"Many years ago there lived a priest of the Taouist religion, who had obtained a reputation for his skill in magic. At the festival of the feast of dragon boats, the priest went to sport in the river in honor of his gods, but by some mischance he was drowned, and his body no where to be found. His dutiful daughter, Tsao-hou, a girl fourteen years of age, felt her father's loss so deeply that she wandered along the banks of the river for seventeen days and nights, weeping and wailing over her loss. At last she threw a large melon into the river, putting up the prayer, 'May this melon sink wherever the body of my father lieth.' With anxious eyes she watched the gourd as it floated on the surface of the stream, until it stopped at a certain spot where it sank. The poor damsel, frantic with grief, rushed to the place and plunged after it. She too was drowned, but five days afterward her lifeless trunk rose to the surface with her father's body in her embrace. Both were buried on the river bank, and in commemoration of that incident the name of the girl was given to the lake and a magnificent temple erected to her name." On the sixth day they came to Chao-Hing, the Venice of China, where the canals are so numerous that any portion of the city may be reached by boats. Imagine a city with, in place of streets, one large network of water-roads, intersected with bridges, so light and fanciful that one could imagine them to have been blown together by the breath of fairies, and you will have some notion of Chao-Hing. This city is celebrated alike for its silk-worms and book-worms. So great is the reputation of the scholars of Chao-Hing that they are sought for by the viceroys of provinces to fill government offices. Near to this city and not far from the mountain of Asses (so called from its being shaped in the form of that animal) is the sepulchre of the great Emperor Yu, the model sovereign of China. This prince obtained the throne by having saved the empire from the deluge of water which in his time covered the lands; indeed, he must have been no common engineer, for in thirteen years, by unwearied labor, he leveled high mountains, embanked and confined great rivers within their channels, drained lakes and marshes, enclosed rapid torrents with banks, and divided rivers into canals, which not only gained a great extent of country, but rendered the whole more fertile. It was the great genius and wonderful energy of Yu that caused the reigning Emperor to choose him for his successor in preference to either of the four princes, his sons.