rge and noble" city, only now it is known as Chengtu,
and the days are not so very far in the past when it was hardly a city
at all.

Szechuan's later history begins with the troubled times that marked the
fall of the Ming dynasty. While the Manchus were busy establishing
themselves at Peking, the outlying provinces of the empire were given
over to brigandage and civil strife. Here in Chengtu an adventurer
calling himself the Emperor of the West succeeded in getting the upper
hand for a short time, and when his end came there was little left to
rule over save ruins and dead men, which was hardly to be wondered at,
seeing his idea of ruling was to exterminate all his subjects. Baber has
made from De Mailla's "History of China" the following summary of his
measures: "_Massacred_: 32,310 undergraduates; 3000 eunuchs; 2000 of his
own troops; 27,000 Buddhist priests; 600,000 inhabitants of Chengtu; 280
of his own concubines; 400,000 wives of his troops; everybody else in
the province. _Destroyed_: Every building in the province. _Burnt_:
Everything inflammable."

Since that time Szechuan has been repeopled and to-day the capital has a
population of quite three hundred and fifty thousand, although the
walls, that in the thirteenth century extended twenty miles, are now no
more than twelve in length and enclose a good deal of waste land. The
wonderful bridges described by Marco Polo, half a mile long and lined
with marble pillars supporting the tiled roof, no longer exist, but the
city still abounds in bridges of a humbler sort, for it is crossed by
the main stream of the Min as well as by many smaller branches and
canals, all alive with big and little craft. Chengtu is proud of its
streets, which are well paved and broader and cleaner than common, and
on the whole it is an attractive, well-built city.

The viceroy of the province has his seat here, and Szechuan shares with
the metropolitan province of Chihli the honour of having one all to
itself, and he is more truly a viceroy than the others, for the Mantzu
and Tibetan territories lying to the west are administered through the
provincial government and are in a way tributary to it. Even from far
Nepal on the borders of India come the bearers of gifts to the
representative of the emperor.

Ser Marco speaks of the "fine cloth and crepes and gauzes" of Chengtu,
and still to-day the merchants unroll at your feet as you sit on your
verandah exquisitely soft, shimmering silks