232  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
lake  and  its  affluents,  accessible  through  the  portal  of
Hukow,  furnish  the  channels  of  transportation  through
the  province.  From  Kiangsi  over  the  Meiling  Pass  to
Canton  runs  a  main  trade  route,  by  which  formerly  a  considerable ­
  traffic  passed,  and  by  which  even  now  goes  much
of  the  porcelain  sent  from  Kingtehchen  to  Canton,  to  be
there  painted  with  the  florid  Cantonese  designs.  Kingtehchen ­
  itself,  a  town  of  no  official  status,  i.e.  with  no  official
head  or  government,  with  a  population  estimated  a  century
ago  by  Abbé  Hue  at  a  million,  destroyed  in  the  Taiping
rebellion,  and  revived  so  as  to  support  a  present  population
of  150,000,  is  the  centre  of  production  of  Chinese  porcelain.
Formerly  unapproachable  in  quality  and  inimitable  in  the
coloring  of  its  designs,  this  porcelain  rapidly  deteriorated
from  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  received  its
death-blow  on  the  destruction  of  the  ovens  by  the  Taipings  ,
and  since  the  revival  of  the  industry  the  product  has  been
coarse  and  heavy  in  material,  and  crude  in  the  coloring
and  design  of  what  is  painted  at  the  place.  Other  products
of  the  province  are  tea,  tobacco,  paper,  hemp,  and  wood-oil.
In  the  province  is  one  treaty  port.
Kiukiang  (29 0  44'  N.,  116 0  8'  E.),  a  city  of  55,000  people,
opened  as  a  treaty  port  in  1861,  is  situated  near  the  outlet
of  the  Poyang  Lake.  In  this  year  a  British  concession
was  granted,  with  municipal  government  like  that  of
Tientsin,  and  this  constitutes  to-day  the  residential  quarter
for  the  foreign  community.  Thirteen  miles  from  Kiukiang
is  the  mountain  resort  of  Ruling,  “  Bull  Ridge,"  where,  at
an  altitude  of  3,500  feet,  the  foreign  residents  of  Shanghai
and  the  Yangtze  valley  have  established  a  “  summer
cottage  "  colony,  comprising,  with  no  hotels,  by  the  census
of  September  1906,  a  summer  population  of  1,100.  The
intended  function  of  the  port,  to  serve  as  a  tea  market,
was  maintained  for  a  few  years,  but  by  degrees  the  control
of  the  business  was  transferred  to  Hankow,  and  to-day
most  of  the  tea  prepared  for  the  foreign  market  remains
in  Chinese  hands  until  it  is  sold  at  Hankow.  The  progress
of  trade  at  the  port  is  shown  by  the  following  figures,  the