- We Have Again Arrived On The Banks Of The Hwang-Ho, Which Was
Crossed Higher Up On Our Traveller's Route To Karajang.
No accounts, since China became known to modern Europe, attribute to the
Hwang-Ho the great utility for navigation which Polo here and elsewhere
ascribes to it.
Indeed, we are told that its current is so rapid that its
navigation is scarcely practicable, and the only traffic of the kind that
we hear of is a transport of coal in Shan-si for a certain distance down
stream. This rapidity also, bringing down vast quantities of soil, has so
raised the bed that in recent times the tide has not entered the river, as
it probably did in our traveller's time, when, as it would appear from his
account, seagoing craft used to ascend to the ferry north of Hwai-ngan fu,
or thereabouts. Another indication of change is his statement that the
passage just mentioned was only one day's journey from the sea, whereas it
is now about 50 miles in a direct line. But the river has of late years
undergone changes much more material.
In the remotest times of which the Chinese have any record, the Hwang-Ho
discharged its waters into the Gulf of Chih-li, by two branches, the most
northerly of which appears to have followed the present course of the
Pei-ho below Tien-tsing. In the time of the Shang Dynasty (ending B.C.
1078) a branch more southerly than either of the above flowed towards
T'si-ning, and combined with the T'si River, which flowed by T'si-nan fu,
the same in fact that was till recently called the Ta-t'sing. In the time
of Confucius we first hear of a branch being thrown off south-east towards
the Hwai, flowing north of Hwai-ngan, in fact towards the embouchure which
our maps still display as that of the Hwang-Ho. But, about the 3rd and 4th
centuries of our era, the river discharged exclusively by the T'si; and up
to the Mongol age, or nearly so, the mass of the waters of this great river
continued to flow into the Gulf of Chih-li. They then changed their course
bodily towards the Hwai, and followed that general direction to the sea;
this they had adopted before the time of our traveller, and they retained
it till a very recent period. The mass of Shan-tung thus forms a
mountainous island rising out of the vast alluvium of the Hwang-Ho, whose
discharge into the sea has alternated between the north and the south of
that mountainous tract. (See Map opposite.)
During the reign of the last Mongol emperor, a project was adopted for
restoring the Hwang-Ho to its former channel, discharging into the Gulf of
Chih-li; and discontents connected with this scheme promoted the movement
for the expulsion of the dynasty (1368).
A river whose regimen was liable to such vast changes was necessarily a
constant source of danger, insomuch that the Emperor Kia-K'ing in his will
speaks of it as having been "from the remotest ages China's sorrow." Some
idea of the enormous works maintained for the control of the river may be
obtained from the following description of their character on the north
bank, some distance to the west of Kai-fung fu:
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