Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/38

further east, it takes the name of Great River (Ta-kiang), which at Wuchang in Hupeh is changed to Long River (Chang-kiang) and finally at Nanking to Willow River (Yangtse-kiang),^[1] a term derived from the willows planted at the entrances and exits of the towns along its banks. The last stretch of two hundred miles from Nanking to the river's two mouths at Tsung-ming Island is navigable by ocean-going ships, and European engineers have declared that by digging a canal round the gorges and rapids between Ichang and Kweichow steamers would be able to ascend to a total distance of two thousand miles from the sea. Compared with the Yellow River, the Yangtse is a quiet stream, yet it is sometimes responsible for inundations on a vast scale; for not only has it been known to rise two hundred feet above its normal level, as in 1870, when whole cities were swept away by its raging flood, but also, like the Yellow River, its bed, owing to injudiciously planned dykes, has been gradually raised above the level of the country through which it flows, and the destruction or decay of these embankments often converts wide districts into inland seas. The Yangtse has inspired much literature and occupied the attention of many scientific observers. These have proved that in the last thousand miles of its course the river has a fall of only 163 feet; that the sediment deposited at the mouth is sufficient to