we find ourselves arrested
by the Hwang Ho--not that we experience any difficulty in reaching
the other bank; but we wish to indulge our curiosity in inspecting
the means of transit. It is a bridge, and such a bridge as has no
parallel on earth. Five miles in length, it is longer than any
other bridge built for the passage of a river. It is not, however,
as has been said, the longest bridge in the world; the elevated
railway of New York is a bridge of much greater length. So are
some of the bridges that carry railways across swamp-lands on the
Pacific Coast. Bridges of that sort, however, are of comparatively
easy construction. They have no rebellious stream or treacherous
quicksands to contend with. Caesar's bridge over the Rhine was an
achievement worthy to be recorded among the victories of his Gallic
wars; but it was a child's plaything in comparison with the bridge
over the Yellow River. Caesar's bridge rested on sesquipedalian
beams of solid timber. The Belgian bridge is supported on tubular
piles of steel of sesquipedalian diameter driven by steam or screwed
down into the sand to a depth of fifty feet.

There have been other bridges near this very spot
[Page 42]
with which it might be compared. One of them was called Ta-liang,
the "Great Bridge," and gave name to a city. Another was Pien-liang,
"The Bridge of Pien," one of the names of the present city of
K'ai-fung-fu. That bridge has long since disappeared; but the name
adheres to the city.

What an unstable foundation on which to erect a seat of empire!
Yet the capital has been located in this vicinity more than once
or twice within the last twenty-five centuries. The first occasion
was during the dynasty of Chou (1100 B. c.), when the king, to be
more central, or perhaps dreading the incursions of the Tartars,
forsook his capital in Shensi and followed the stream down almost
to the sea, braving the quicksands and the floods rather than face
those terrible foes. Again, in the Sung period, it was the seat
of government for a century and a half.

The safest refuge for a fugitive court which, once established
there, has no reason to fear attack by sea or river, it is somewhat
strange that in 1900 the Empress Dowager did not direct her steps
toward K'ai-fung-fu, instead of escaping to Si-ngan. Being, however,
herself a Tartar, she might have been expected to act in a way
contrary to precedents set by Chinese dynasties. Obviously, she
chose the latter as a pla