The most remarkable canal in the world is, in many respects, the Grand Canal of China. It is also, probably, the canal of all others of which the least is known. The fullest account hitherto extant, relative to this waterway, is that published by Marco Polo, and therefore dates as far back as the thirteenth century.[126] Several writers state that the Grand Canal of China was constructed in the tenth century, and Priestley—who does not, however, quote the source of his information—declares that it was completed in the year 980. Seeing, however, that Polo, writing from Tartary in 1278, speaks as if the canal were then in course of construction, this is hardly likely to be correct. “You must understand,” he says, “that the Emperor has caused a water communication to be made from this city (Kwachan) to Camboluc, in the hope of a wide and deep channel, dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming, as it were, a great river on which large vessels can ply.” Polo is confirmed by other writers, and Dr. Williams, in one of the most recent and reliable works on China,[127] states that “the canal was designed by Kublai to reach from his own capital as far as Hangchau, the former capital of the Sung dynasty.” This, again, seems to be at variance with the testimony of Pére Mailla,[128] who, writing in the last century, declared that he and his brother Jesuits gazed with astonishment and admiration at the chasms which the Emperor Yu caused to be cut through solid mountains for the waters of the Yellow River.[129] If this does not refer to the Grand Canal, it may be presumed, as a writer in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ has pointed out,[130] that it was the water itself and not the Emperor Yu that opened these channels. The date of the construction of the Grand Canal of China is thus, like many other matters pertaining to the history of that country, involved in obscurity. But no such uncertainty hangs over its extent and importance. The canal is nearly 700 miles in length, and reaches from Hang-choo-foo to Yan-liang river, having connections with the rivers Yang-tse-kiang and Ho-hang-ho, or the Yellow River.[131] Davis has given a description of the work,[132] from which it would appear that for some distance after the canal joins the Yu-ho, on its eastern bank, as that river flows towards the Peiho, it evidently follows the bed of a natural river. Its course is winding, and its banks are irregular and inartificial. It has, however, stone abutments and flood-gates for the purpose of regulating its waters. The distance between the stone piers in some of the flood-gates is often very narrow. The course of the water through these gates is arrested in rather a primitive fashion. Stout boards, with ropes fastened to each end, are let down edgeways over each other, through grooves in the stone piers. A number of soldiers and workmen always attend at the sluices, and shield the boats from danger by letting down coils of