No cart driver was
willing to venture his neck, his steed, and his vehicle by going
in that direction. I accordingly steered for the Mecca of Shantung,
and, having paid my respects to the memory of China's greatest sage,
struck the Grand Canal and proceeded to Shanghai. From K'ai-fung-fu
I had come by land slowly, painfully, and not without danger. From
Tsi-ning I drifted down with luxurious ease in a well-appointed
house-boat, meditating poetic terms in which to describe the contrast.
The canal deserves the name of "grand" as the wall on the north
deserves the name of "great." Memorials of ancient times, they both
still stand unrivalled by anything the Western world has to show,
if one except the Siberian Railway. The Great Wan is an effete relic
no longer of use; and it appears to be satire on human foresight
that the Grand Canal should have been built by the very people
whom the Great Wall was intended to exclude from China. The canal
is as useful to-day as it was six centuries ago, and remains the
chief glory of the Mongol dynasty.
Kublai having set up his throne in the north, and completed the
conquest of the eighteen provinces, ordered the construction of
this magnificent waterway,
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which extends 800 miles from Peking to Hangchow and connects with
other waterways which put the northern capital in roundabout
communication with provinces of the extreme south. His object was
to tap the rice-fields of Central China and obtain a food supply
which could not be interfered with by those daring sea-robbers,
the redoubtable Japanese, who had destroyed his fleets and rendered
abortive his attempt at conquest.
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