Will the spirit which instituted the ancient notable public works of China revive again? That is the question. The greatest irrigation work in the world, 2,100 years old, is in China at Chingtu. It was invented by Li Ping, the engineer-governor, B.C. 250. A plain seventy-five miles by forty miles is irrigated. It supports nearly 4,000,000 people. The water is taken from the Min River at Kwan Hien above Chingtu in April, and is permitted to run in the thousands of channels until November. Then the great banks of the Min are restored, as the rains are sufficient, and the river runs in its old bed to join the “father of waters”, the Yangtze River, at Sui Fu. The dikes are made of iron, cement, stone, timber and bamboo cradles. Li left this message, which is cut in the stones of his tomb outside the walls of Chingtu: “Shen Tao Tan Ti Tso Yen” (Dig deep the bars, keep low the dikes). The Chinese are going to use these works to produce power and light as well as irrigation.

At Li Ling, over the Lu Ho River in southeast Hunan province, is a high wooden cantilever bridge of six spans, four hundred and eighty feet long and twenty feet wide, paved with cobbles, and covered with an awning. The substructure is masonry, and the cantilever principle is obtained by increasing the length of the pier timbers as they are laid on one another. I want to describe a beautiful suspension bridge over the Yang Ti River near Tali in Yunnan province, which shows that engineering ability was generally spread throughout the provinces to reach thus far in the extreme southwest. The double piers on each side of the stream rise in great strength, and the arch is joined and roofed over most artistically in characteristic Chinese style, like a temple. Eight suspended iron chains make the floor of the bridge, which is anchored half-way up the stone piers, under the arch. From the chains arises a bamboo fence, which is kept from spreading by stanchions, under which you must stoop at regular distances. There is a commemoration statue of a recumbent water buffalo at the foot of one of the pairs of piers. It and the bridge are all that remain of the forgotten assemblage of orators, patrons, troops and society which ages ago graced the occasion, another triumph of the doers over the talkers. The engineer and the architect alone build their own monuments. As in the case of Christopher Wren at St. Paul’s, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.”

China thinks more of the engineer than we credit her with thinking; otherwise she would not have criticized the Manchu so much of late. Between high banks over the River Lou, in west Szechuen province, is the famous Lou Ting Haio bridge, built in 1700. It is one hundred and ninety-two feet long and has nine suspended iron chains, with loose planks laid across. At Chow Chu, near Swatow, there is a beautiful stone pier bridge over the Han River. Shops are established at each pier, and the floor of the shop protrudes, and is supported with great poles that retreat back to the piers. A daily fair is held upon the bridge, because it is the most central point for the travelers from many villages. Each village of the district has its own day for its fair. At Changchow, near Amoy, is a wonderful bridge, from engineering and artistic points of view. The great Chah Siang built it eight hundred years ago from voluntary subscriptions. It is one thousand yards long. There are one hundred and twenty piers, and the height above the water is forty feet. Five stones of one hundred tons each, twenty feet long, compose the roadway, each stone being several feet wide. The piers up-stream are made with a cutwater bow. At Kweiyang, the capital of Kweichau province, a massive stone bridge of ten piers, with cutwaters, shows what ancient China could execute in masonry. Near the rich coal mines at Ping Hsiang, in Kiangsi province, there is a high five-arched, pier-pinnacled, balustraded bridge, which is singularly beautiful. There are shrines on the piers, which also have cutwaters. Chinese engineers discovered the principles of the true arch; that is, a complete ring of voussoirs, and not the succession of protruding corbels invented by the Hindus. The Chinese are just discovering western industry and inventions, but we are just discovering Chinese engineering, with engineers like their Yu and Chah Siang, and the modern “Jeme”, which will cause not a little surprise and enthusiasm in the practical Occidental world.

At Yangchow, on the Yangtze River, there is a remarkable pavilion bridge. The heaviest part of the stone bridge is in the middle of the stream, which is let through the masonry in a number of half and full arch tunnels. Over these tunnels rises the heavy masonry pile, topped with an artistic balustrade. On this is a superstructure of five beautiful pavilions, with prominent up-curling eaves. The bridge descends on each side to the banks along a sloping abutment. It is an exceptional structure even for varied China, both from an artistic and engineering standpoint. The ancient Liu Ko stone bridge over the Hun River north of Peking is famous for its lion-pier terminals, its carved stone balustrade which is in the ornate style. After leaving Szechuen province, on the road into Yunnan, over the Niu Lan River, at Kiang Ti, is a noted suspension bridge, hung between two heavy piers in a gorge, the piers being surmounted with curve-roofed pavilions. The carvings of monkeys, lions, etc., are very fine. The bridge, which is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve feet, is made of iron chains, pulled very taut, showing the unusual strength of the anchorage. There is also a hand chain. The pavilions are, as usual, used as a restaurant and an inn for travelers.

The two most famous suspension bridges are over the Mekong River in Yunnan province, between Tali and Yungchang, and over the Salween River on the main road to Burma. These chain bridges are hung from heavy piers deep down in the vast gorges, and show that men were mighty enough in those old days to tackle so mighty a problem. The Ban Chiao bridge at Yungchang is worthy of the famous engineers of that province. Strong stone piers are sunk down into the swift stream and anchored to the high banks. A secure bridge has been laid down over this support. The abutments are raised and roofed with a glorious double pagoda, the ridge, curling eaves, flying supports and ornaments all being splendidly carved. The bridge itself is protected with a balustrade, and is roofed with tiles throughout. It is both an artistic and a substantial structure. So much for the beautiful bridges of the old rÉgime, nearly all it will be noted in the native Chinese section of the country. Herr Dorpmuller and other German engineers are teaching the Chinese the revival of stone bridges by the massive structures which they have erected on the line of the Tientsin-Pukow railway.

A beginning has been made in erecting iron truss bridges. The very long pier bridge carrying the Peking-Hankau (Belgian built) railway across the Yellow River is well known, and has stood longer than it was thought it would because of the shifting foundation. The eight-pier steel bridge over the Hwei River on the line of the Tientsin-Pukow railway was erected by the Wright-Headson Company, of Motherwell, Scotland. At Shanghai there is the wide Garden bridge. A steel bridge has been erected over the Yellow River at Lanchow, the capital of remote Kansu province, and at Tientsin is the Chin Kung truss bridge. At Chungking a structure has been erected across the Yalung River. The Hongkong-Canton, Tientsin-Nanking, Peking-Hankau, North China and Kiachou-Tsinan railways of course have many steel culvert bridges. There are already a considerable number of remarkable steel truss bridges of eighteen to twenty-four spans over Liao, Nu Erh, Hsiao, Taling, Sha, Tawen, Yellow and other great rivers of China. The French railway, from Haiphong to Yunnan City, is built over one hundred small bridges in the crossing of the Red River, Namti and Song River valleys.

From Peking to Tungchow, at the head of navigation from the coast, about twenty miles, runs a broad road paved five hundred years ago by the Ming kings with immense blocks, three feet square by two feet thick. The road sadly needs resetting, but one can readily imagine what a splendidly substantial road it once was in those spacious days of the last of the pure Chinese kings. The Ming thought of art and public works. The Manchu has thought more of intrigue and private dinners since he gave up riding horses and living in tents. One of the strongest charges against the Manchu was that he threw the great public works which he inherited into ruin. This Tungchow Road is the road over which commerce, invasion and many a dignified embassy have gone during the recent strenuous centuries. The Che Ling Road runs from Chinchow, in Hunan province, to Canton. This is the road the new railway will take. The foot road is fifteen feet wide and composed of great stone blocks one foot thick. Before traffic was gathered at Hankau and Canton by steamships, the traffic on the Che Ling foot road was very heavy, and shops lined the long stone highway. Another famous road, the Mei Ling, also composed of stone blocks, climbs the great Nan Shan (Southern Mountains) and connects Nangan in Kiansi province and Canton. This is the road that AbbÉ Huc took in 1849 when he made his daring journey from Tibet to Chingtu, Chungking, Hankau, Kowkiang, Nanchang, up the Kan River to Canton and Macao. There is a famous imperial road from Peking to Jehol, through Kupikan pass, where the Manchus may finally be segregated. The road from Peking to the Ming tombs is paved with a course of large stones. The “Great Road” runs from Peking to Canton along the coast, and answers to the old Japanese “Tokkaido”, which runs from Tokio to Kioto. It was a Mongol road, dating back to the Great Wall. The best Chinese roads, however, were made in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D., during the Sung dynasty, whose capital was Hangchow.

In 1890 the province of Szechuen built sixty-five miles of a mountain river road in the gorges of the Yangtze River, starting from Kwei-chow and running eastward. The road is from one hundred to five hundred feet above high water and is cut six feet wide and eight feet high into the limestone cliffs, truly a splendid revival of the noble works of the Ming kings, and in a sublime situation not to be equaled anywhere. The Szechuen people boast that their “road goes where a monkey couldn’t hang”. The road was planned and executed entirely on Chinese initiative. The best known road in China, and considering its length, the best conditioned road in the empire, runs for four hundred miles in Szechuen province from Wan Hsien on the Yangtze River, overland to Chingtu City, the capital. It is called the Siao Pen Lu (smaller north road), and is paved to the width of six feet. It has many wonderful staircases cut up mountain faces. The road could be shortened one hundred miles if bridges were built at the gorges. An internationally owned railway was planned for this route. From Chungking to Chingtu in Szechuen province, up hill and down, and across fields and marshes, runs a traveled road paved much of the way with large stone slabs. From Chungking to Sui Fu, along the Yangtze River for two hundred miles runs a notable stone road five feet wide. Along all these old roads the freight of 400,000,000 people has been carried on the backs of men and women, and even children, whether by barrow or shoulder load, during the long quiet centuries, at an awful cost of money; for too large a proportion of the nation has been engaged in the transportation as compared with the producing department, and this is one reason why China has been poor so long.

Wells have been sunk by contractors, with whom the mayor of the village (hsiang lao) dealt. A brick caisson, fitted on a bamboo frame, is dug under and sunk. On this caisson the upper wall is built. Sometimes iron-pointed bamboo pipes are driven through the bottom of the well. These old methods will give way to the new, and windmills will begin to hum in old China.

The modern water-works of Peking take the water from the Sha Ho, a clear stream in the Western Hills. There are settling tanks, pumping stations, stand-pipes, etc. One hundred and thirty thousand families are supplied from the mains. The same concession to labor has been made as at Hongkong, in that the cleaning of the filter sand and gravel is done by hand instead of by machine. Nearly all the treaty ports are putting in modern water-works, which have been sorely needed. China’s death rate is decreasing, and it is not necessary, even from a Chinese point of view, that there should be so many births or dual wives any more.

Electric light plants are in operation at nearly all the coast treaty ports, as well as at some of the Yangtze treaty ports and West River ports inland. In the Occident, intellectual and spiritual light preceded lighted roads and the light of science, but as everything is opposite in China, it seems that science is preceding intellectual and spiritual light. But “these twain shall meet in one equator round the globe”.

The Lighthouse Department of the National Customs is employing foreign engineers in harbor and channel work, and some improvements have been made on the coast and along the rivers, the provincial authorities making a special tax wherever possible to foot the bills. Often the boatmen, merchants’ and bankers’ guilds are required to subscribe.

The first systematized attempt to handle public works scientifically was undertaken by the provincial assemblies of Nganhwei and Kiangsu provinces in the summer of 1911, during the awful famines, which followed the great floods. America has sent large contributions of flour and money for rice. The assemblies put the men, whom the floods withheld from their fields, on railway building, canal dredging, bridge building, and road making. It was along these roads that the triumphant right wing of the republicans marched, headed by Generals Hsu and Ling, in the memorable attack on Nanking, which broke the imperial resistance, and threw the Manchu over the yamen wall!

Self-reliance is half brother of independence. I have found that with these improvements has grown up not a little talk of “China for the Chinese”. One finds constant complaints in the native Chinese press that lucrative contracts, such as the erection of government buildings, are given to Japanese and other foreign contractors instead of local firms. The signs, taken altogether, are hopeful, and West and East have enough to interchange without overlapping each other. Nice adjustments will have to be made in some cases, but tact, patience, mutual sympathy and altruism will in the end overcome any misunderstandings that may arise.