ns Pearl River, is also
a very large stream. All these waterways, you notice on the map, have a
general course from west to east. All of them are navigable, though the
Hoang-ho is less so than the Yang-tsze-Chiang, the 'most beloved' of the
Chinese; for its counterpart in the north is a turbid stream, so tricky
that it changed its course in 1853 so that its mouth is now about two
hundred and fifty miles north of where it was before that date."

Mr. Gaskette pointed out the former course, which he had indicated by
double dotted lines, and that of the present course to the Gulf of
Pe-chi-li.

"Chinese history begins twenty-four hundred years before our era, when
the first human kings of Egypt were on the throne, with the narrative of
a tremendous inundation, which some have identified as that of the Flood
in the Old Testament. But the floods did not cease with that event, for
several others have followed. As late as 1887, only half a dozen years
ago, the treacherous Hoang-ho broke loose, and poured its waters into
the populous province of Honan, tearing everything to pieces and
destroying millions of lives. There have been so many of these floods
that they have given the great river the name of 'China's Sorrow.' But
the Manchu rulers are repairing damages, and providing against such
disasters in the future.

"I have to speak next about the Grand Canal and the Great Wall; but I
will defer it for half an hour for a recess, for I think you must be
tired of the dry details I have been giving you," said the professor, as
he stepped down from the rostrum.

The company then promenaded the deck for the time indicated.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE CONTINUATION OF THE LECTURE

A walk of half an hour had freshened up the minds and bodies of the
passengers, and they took their places on the promenade for the
continuation of the lecture. The professor had been to his stateroom,
and returned with additional notes.

"Dr. Legge quotes Marco Polo, the greatest traveller of the Middle Ages,
who visited China in the thirteenth century," the speaker began, taking
a paper from the table, and reading as follows in regard to the Grand
Canal: "'Kublai caused a water communication to be made in the shape 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.'
Kublai was the first sovereign of one of the old dynasties.

"The canal extended from Pek