The time which was not absorbed in long interviews, partly compulsory, partly voluntary, with our host, was occupied in visiting the town. Ché-Tsui-Dze is built in the corner of an angle, formed on one side by the Alechan mountains, and on the other by the Yellow River. On its eastern bank the Hoang-Ho is bordered by dark hills, wherein are abundant coal mines, which the inhabitants work with great activity, and whence they derive their chief wealth. The suburbs of the town are occupied by great potteries, where you observe colossal urns, used in families as reservoirs of water, and large stoves of admirable construction, and a large collection of vases of all shapes and sizes. There is in the province of Kan-Sou a large trade in this pottery.
At Ché-Tsui-Dze, provisions are abundant, varied, and of astonishingly moderate price. Nowhere, perhaps, can a person live so economically. At every hour of the day and night, itinerant restaurateurs bring to your house whatever provisions you need: soups, ragouts of mutton and beef, vegetables, pastry, rice, vermicelli, etc. There are dinners for every appetite, and for every purse—from the complicated banquet of the rich, to the simple and clear broth of the beggar. These restaurateurs are coming and going to and fro almost without interval. They are generally Moslems—a blue cap distinguishing them from the Chinese.
After two days repose in the Inn of Justice and Mercy, we proceeded on our way. The environs of Ché-Tsui-Dze are uncultivated. On all sides, nothing is to be seen but sand and gravel, drifted by the annual inundation of the Yellow River. However, as you advance, the soil, becoming imperceptibly higher, improves. An hour’s distance from the town, we crossed the Great Wall, or rather passed over some miserable ruins that still mark the ancient site of the celebrated rampart of China. The country soon becomes magnificent, and we could not but admire the agricultural genius of the Chinese people. The part of Kan-Sou which we were traversing, is especially remarkable by its ingenious and extensive works for facilitating the irrigation of the fields.
By means of creeks cut in the banks of the Yellow River, the waters are conveyed into broad artificial canals; these again supply others of a larger size, which, in their turn, fill the ditches with which all the fields are surrounded. Sluices, great and small, admirable in their simplicity, serve to raise the water and to carry it over all the inequalities of the land. The distribution of the water is perfectly arranged; each landowner waters his fields in his turn, and no one is allowed to open his flood-gate before his regularly appointed time.