INTERNAL  TRADE  3^5
Before  the  development  of  traffic  by  Mengtsz  the  Yunnan
trade  by  the  West  River  route  was  very  much  greater  than
at  the  present  time.  From  Yunnan  and  Kweichow  comes
opium,  and  the  tin  of  Yunnan,  which  now  finds  its  outlet
by  Mengtsz,  formerly  followed  this  route.  Great  rafts  of
timber  are  floated  down  from  the  mountains  of  northwestern ­
  Kwangsi.
2.  The  Cheling  Pass  route  follows  the  North  River  up
from  Canton,  and  a  branch  which  falls  into  it  from  the
north-west  at  Shaochow  ;  thence  by  porters  over  the  pass
to  the  water-ways  of  Hunan.  This  pass,  of  less  than  1,500
feet  altitude,  offers  but  slight  impediment  to  the  sturdy
coolies  of  South  China  ;  but  the  surveys  of  the  American
engineers,  prospecting  for  the  line  of  the  Hankow-Canton
railway,  have  revealed  the  fact  that  the  true  pass  is  not  on
the  line  of  the  old  highway,  and  that  for  many  centuries
millions  of  tons  of  merchandise  passing  over  this  route  have
been  laboriously  carried  on  men’s  shoulders  to  a  height
150  feet  higher  than  nature  demanded.  The  water-ways  of
Hunan  are  reached  at  Chenchow,  on  an  affluent  of  the
Siang  River,  and  thence  traffic  passes  by  small  boats  down
into  the  Siang.  At  Siangtan,  once  a  place  of  great  importance ­
  with  a  population  estimated  at  700,000,  transhipment
was  ordinarily  effected  into  the  larger  deep-draft  junks
plying  down  the  Siang  and  into  the  Yangtze.  Descending
the  Siang,  the  traffic  then  reached  the  Tungting  Lake,  a
lake  in  summer  with  vast  uncharted  shoals,  but  in  winter  a
congeries  of  wide  and  shallow  channels  meandering  between
broad  islands  of  alluvial  deposit,  and  neither  in  summer
nor  in  winter  available  for  commercial  use.  The  main
stream  of  traffic  skirted  the  eastern  side  of  the  lake  and,
entering  the  Yangtze  at  Yochow,  descended  that  stream  125
miles  north-east  to  Hankow.  The  lesser  part  of  the  traffic
passed  through  the  crooked  channels  of  the  alluvial  delta
of  the  Siang  and  the  Yuan,  forming  the  south  shore  of  the
lake,  and  then,  skirting  the  western  shore,  passed  into
the  Yangtze  near  Shasi  by  the  canals  which  were  the  work
of  the  Great  Yfi  in  times  long  gone  by  ;  thence  the  Yangtze