Two intermediate provinces which, speaking accurately, belong neither to the middle basin of the Yangtse nor to the southern basin of the ‘West River,’ their rivers draining as they do direct into the Pacific, are Chekiang and Fukien: in climate and productions, however, they belong rather to Mid China than to the south and so are fitly introduced into this chapter. They may be said to be cut off from the great province of Kiangsi on their west by the range of the Wu-yi-shan, commonly pronounced ‘Bohea,’ the crest of which forms the water-parting from the Yangtse basin and turns their streams eastward to the sea. Both provinces are wholly mountainous, with the exception of a few square miles of flat land to the north and east of Hangchow, which geographically form a part of the Yangtse delta, there being no line of demarcation whatever.

Chekiang is the smallest of the eighteen provinces, having an area of 36,000 square miles only, with a population estimated at 11,000,000. Its name is taken from a river in the southern part of the province called the Che-kiang, meaning Crooked River, one of the many small rivers that, rising in its western mountains, traverse the province in a west-east direction and fall with a rapid incline into the sea. Chekiang is one of the best-known provinces to European travellers;