rope, in the same way as a ship’s “fender,” to break the force of the blows. The highest point of the canal appears to be at the influx of the Yun-ho, which enters the canal on its eastern side nearly at right angles, while part of its waters flow north and part south. At this point, where a strong facing of stone on the western bank sustains the force of the influx, there is an interesting temple, erected to the Dragon King, or genius of the watery element, who is supposed to have the canal in his special keeping. The work of joining the Yun-ho, and the Grand Canal is attributed to Sung Li, who lived under Hungwa, the first Emperor of the Ming dynasty, about 1375. It was accomplished in this wise. A part of the canal in Shantung became so impassable in the time of Sung Li, that the roundabout coasting passage by sea had to be resorted to. An old man, named Piying, thereupon proposed to Sung a scheme for the concentration of the waters on the Yun-ho and neighbouring streams and their diversion into the canal, as at present. It is said that Sung employed 300,000 men to carry out the work, and that it was completed in seven months; but the Chinese historians are not, unfortunately, the most veracious. For a great part of its route the Grand Canal runs through a level and marshy district. In some places, indeed, the canal becomes merged in the lakes and swamps which surround it. In other places, however, where there appears to be a special risk of inundation, the banks of the canal are well faced with stone. The canal, before leaving the lakes in the southern part of Shanting, used to run nearly parallel with that stream for more than a hundred miles, and between it and the New Salt River for a great part of that distance. This river, formerly described as one well adapted for navigation, has now become completely silted up, and at Kiafung the difference of level is so trifling that the siltage there has been enough to turn the current into the river Wei and elsewhere. At the opening of the canal there is a sluice nearly 100 yards across, through which the water is said to rush into the river like a mill-race. There is, however, a makeshift sort of appearance about the canal works generally. The banks are in many places constructed of earth, strengthened with sorghum stalks and strongly bound with cordage; and Davis, in speaking of the attempt made to repair the damage caused by the inundation of the Yellow River in this way, remarks very justly that if the science of a Brunel[133] could be allowed to operate on the Yellow River and Grand Canal, “a benefit might be conferred on the Chinese that would more than compensate for all the evil we have inflicted with our opium and our guns.”