There is not one of her provinces in which wheat, rice,
and cotton, the three staples of food and clothing, may not be
cultivated with more or less success; but in the southern half
wheat gives place to rice, while in the north cotton yields to
silk and hemp. In the south cotton is king and rice is queen of
the fields.
Traversed in every direction by mountain ranges of moderate elevation
whose sides are cultivated in
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terraces to such a height as to present the appearance of hanging
gardens, China possesses fertile valleys in fair proportion, together
with vast plains that compare in extent with those of our American
prairie states. Furrowed by great rivers whose innumerable affluents
supply means of irrigation and transport, her barren tracts are
few and small.
A coast-line of three thousand miles indented with gulfs, bays,
and inlets affords countless harbours for shipping, so that few
countries can compare with her in facilities for ocean commerce.
As to her boundaries, on the east six of her eighteen provinces
bathe their feet in the waters of the Pacific; on the south she
clasps hands with Indo-China and with British Burma; and on the
west the foothills of the Himalayas form a bulwark more secure
than the wall that marks her boundary on the north. Greatest of
the works of man, the Great Wall serves at present no other purpose
than that of a mere geographical expression.
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