In these incessant shiftings, the river has strewn all over an enormous area, 500 miles from north to south by 300 miles from east to west, layer after layer of fine yellow loam or silt; the very name "Yellow River," which is a translation of the Chinese "Hwang-ho," suggests the close resemblance to our own mud-laden Missouri. Almost every square foot of this vast alluvial fan is of course underlain by a deep and fertile soil and is intensively cultivated by the industrious Chinese inhabitants. One sees no large fields of grain, such as those on our Dakota prairies, but instead, thousands of small truck gardens belonging to the inhabitants of the hundreds of little mud-walled villages with which the plain is dotted. The ever-present town walls have doubtless been built because the inhabitants have no natural refuges, as their mountain cousins have, and their very accessibility has made them in the past the frequent prey of Mongol and Tartar invaders, or of rebels and rioters from within their own country.
Since the water supply of the plain is not lavish, but little rice is grown there. The dry-land grains, and such vegetables as cabbages and potatoes, are the staple crops. The small gardens are sparingly irrigated, however, in times of drought, by water taken from the canals or wells with the help of various types of crude pumps, operated by men or by donkeys.
In this densely populated alluvial plain there is practically no pasturage and no woodland. From the very nature of the plain it could not yield coal, which is always associated with the solid rocks. To bring fuel, as we do, from distant parts of the country is impossibly expensive for the Chinese, without an adequate railroad system, and that is still a thing of the future. When the harvest has been gathered in the autumn, the village children are therefore sent out to gather up every scrap of straw or stubble that can be used either for fodder or for fuel. The fields thus left perfectly bare in the dry winter season afford an unlimited supply of fine dust to every wind that blows. This is doubtless the explanation of the disagreeable winter dust-storms with which every foreigner who has lived in northern China is only too familiar.
Although carts and wheel-barrows are much used on the Huang-ho plain, their traffic is chiefly local. That may be due in part to the fact that the numerous wide and shifty rivers are difficult to bridge, while ferrying is relatively expensive. Another, and perhaps more important, reason is that the rivers, and particularly their old abandoned courses, afford natural waterways which are available nearly everywhere. By taking advantage of these, or by deepening them, and in some places by actually digging canals through the soft material of the plain, the Chinese have put together the wonderful system of interlaced canals for which they have been renowned since Europeans first visited them.
