INLAND NAVIGATION.

9

half, which are sufficient to carry barks of considerable burthen, whichare managed by mast and sails, as well as by oars; and some of asmaller sort are towed by hand. The emperor of China is said to em-ploy ten thousand ships, abating one, for a reason very peculiar. Thiscanal passes through, or near, forty-one large cities; it has seventy-five vastsluices to keep up the water, and pass the barks and ships where theground will not admit of sufficient depth of channel, besides severalthousands of draw and other bridges. Innumerable canals are cut fromthis main canal, and the whole empire abounds with rivers, lakes, andrivulets.

China owes the greatest part of its riches and fertility to these nume-rous canals, which are of the greatest utility for the transportation of theproduce and merchandize of one province to another: they are bordered,or faced with quays of freestone, and in low marshy places very longcauseways are raised for the convenience of travellers. These canals arecut through any kind of private property, gardens, plantations, or pleasure-grounds ; not even the gardens of the emperor, or any of his governors,are exempted : but when the work arrives at the garden or pleasure-ground, the governor, or even the emperor himself, digs the first spadeof earth, and pronounces with an audible voice, “ This is to let those ofinferior situations know, that no private pleasure shall obstruct the publicgood.” There are bridges over these canals, of three, five, seven, or morearches, to open a free communication with the country: the middlearch is generally very high, that barks and barges may pass under it withtheir masts standing. When the water is high, and liable to overflowthe neighbouring fields, they take care to open the sluices to convey itaway, and to keep it at a certain height in the canal. There are inspec-tors appointed to survey the canal and visit it continually, and workmenalways ready to repair the damaged places.

And here permit me to mention one circumstance, in which it wouldnot be beneath the magistrates of this country to imitate the example of the

C Chinese