f the
T'angs, who lived during the reign of the Emperor T'ai Tsung of that ilk.
The city having been then founded, its history reaches back to that date.
Since that time the cow has stretched twice.... T'ai-yuan city is square,
and surrounded by a wall of earth, of which the outer face is bricked. The
height of the wall varies from thirty to fifty feet, and it is so broad
that two carriages could easily pass one another upon it. The natives would
tell you that each of the sides is three miles, thirteen paces in length,
but this, possibly, includes what it will be when the cow shall have
stretched for the third and last time. Two miles is the length of each
side; eight miles to tramp if you wish to go round the four of them."--H.
C.] The district used to be much noted for cutlery and hardware, iron as
well as coal being abundantly produced in Shan-si. Apparently the present
Birmingham of this region is a town called Hwai-lu, or Hwo-luh'ien, about
20 miles west of Cheng-ting fu, and just on the western verge of the great
plain of Chihli. [Regarding Hwai-lu, the Rev. C. Holcombe calls it "a
miserable town lying among the foot hills, and at the mouth of the valley,
up which the road into Shan-si lies." He writes (p. 59) that Ping-ting
chau, after the Customs' barrier (Ku Kwan) between Chih-li and Shan-si,
would, under any proper system of management, at no distant day become the
Pittsburg, or Birmingham, of China.--H.C.] (_Richthofen's Letters_, No.
VII. 20; _Cathay_, xcvii. cxiii. cxciv.; _Rennie_, II. 265; _Williamson's
Journeys in North China; Oxenham_, u.s. II; _Klaproth_ in _J. As._ ser. II.
tom. i. 100; _Izzat Ullah's Pers. Itin._ in _J.R.A.S._ VII. 307; _Forke,
Von Peking nach Ch'ang-an_, p. 23.)

["From Khavailu (Hwo-luh'ien), an important commercial centre supplying
Shansi, for 130 miles to Sze-tien, the road traverses the loess hills,
which extend from the Peking-Kalgan road in a south-west direction to the
Yellow River, and which are passable throughout this length only by the
Great Central Asian trade route to T'ai-yuan fu and by the Tung-Kwan,
Ho-nan, i.e. the Yellow River route. (_Colonel Bell, Proc.R.G.S._ XII.
1890, p. 59.) Colonel Bell reckons seven days (218 miles) from Peking to
Hwo-lu-h'ien and five days from this place to T'ai-yuan fu."--H.C.]

NOTE 3.--Martini observes that the grapes in Shan-si were very abundant and
the best in China. The Chinese used them only as raisins, but wine was made
there for