The events which have rendered the Yangtze Valley literally a “sphere of interest” throughout the British Empire lie outside the purview of these volumes. Few people, unless they have been compelled to the task by circumstances or interests, are fully acquainted with the magnitude and resources of the great basin which in the spring of 1898 was claimed as the British “sphere of influence,” and I honestly confess that it was only at the end of eight months (out of journeys of fifteen months in China) spent on the Yangtze, its tributaries, and the regions watered by them that I even began to learn their magnificent capabilities, and the energy, resourcefulness, capacities, and “backbone” of their enormous population.

Geographically the Yangtze Valley, or drainage area, may be taken as extending from the 90th to the 122nd meridian of east longitude, and as including all or most of the important provinces of Sze Chuan, Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Nganhui, Kiangsu, and Honan, with considerable portions of Che Kiang, Kueichow, and Yunnan, and even includes the south-eastern drainage areas of Kansuh, Shensi, and Shantung. Geographically there can be no possible mistake about the limits of this basin. Its area is estimated at about 650,000 square miles, and its population, one of the most peaceable and industrious on earth, at from 170,000,000 to 180,000,000.