The Yang-tse River, which is known to the Chinese as the “Kiang,” i.e. “The River” par excellence, the “Chang Kiang” or the “Long River,” and more commonly still as the “Ta Kiang” or “Great River,” has a course of almost 3000 miles in length. It traverses the country from west to east, and may be said to divide the Chinese Empire into two nearly equal portions,—eight provinces being situated on its left bank, with the same number on the south: two only, Ngan-hui and Kiang-su, lying partly on both banks. For two-thirds of this distance, it runs through mountain land in a continuous ravine, the valley being nowhere wider than the river-bed. In the lower portion of its course, which forms the remaining third of the distance, the valley widens out, and the stream flows through an alluvial plain, following generally the southern boundary of the valley, except where it forces its way athwart the limestone range, which forms the division between the provinces of Hupeh and Kiang si, above the port of Kiukiang, past the vertical cliffs called Split Hill and Cock's Head in our English charts, until it emerges into its delta proper at Kiang-yin, 110 miles above the mouth of its estuary at Yang-tse Cape. The stream leaves the mountains at the Ichang Gorge, just 1000 nautical miles from its mouth; and some fifty miles below this point the boulders and gravel of the Upper River give place to banks of soft alluvium, the outline of which varies every season, notwithstanding the gigantic embankments with which it is sought to retain the stream in its channel.