Apparently The Present
Birmingham Of This Region Is A Town Called Hwai-Lu, Or Hwo-Luh'ien, About
20 Miles West Of Cheng-Ting Fu, And Just On The Western Verge Of The Great
Plain Of Chihli.
[Regarding Hwai-lu, the Rev.
C. Holcombe calls it "a
miserable town lying among the foot hills, and at the mouth of the valley,
up which the road into Shan-si lies." He writes (p. 59) that Ping-ting
chau, after the Customs' barrier (Ku Kwan) between Chih-li and Shan-si,
would, under any proper system of management, at no distant day become the
Pittsburg, or Birmingham, of China. - H.C.] (Richthofen's Letters, No.
VII. 20; Cathay, xcvii. cxiii. cxciv.; Rennie, II. 265; Williamson's
Journeys in North China; Oxenham, u.s. II; Klaproth in J. As. ser. II.
tom. i. 100; Izzat Ullah's Pers. Itin. in J.R.A.S. VII. 307; Forke,
Von Peking nach Ch'ang-an, p. 23.)
["From Khavailu (Hwo-luh'ien), an important commercial centre supplying
Shansi, for 130 miles to Sze-tien, the road traverses the loess hills,
which extend from the Peking-Kalgan road in a south-west direction to the
Yellow River, and which are passable throughout this length only by the
Great Central Asian trade route to T'ai-yuan fu and by the Tung-Kwan,
Ho-nan, i.e. the Yellow River route. (Colonel Bell, Proc.R.G.S. XII.
1890, p. 59.) Colonel Bell reckons seven days (218 miles) from Peking to
Hwo-lu-h'ien and five days from this place to T'ai-yuan fu." - H.C.]
NOTE 3.
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