Over a great part of northern China is a very fertile soil I known as "loess" which is of a yellowish-brown color (see Soil). The sediment of this region colors the rivers and o even part of the ocean, and is responsible for the names "Yellow" River and the "Yellow" Sea.
There is no weekly day of rest in China, although there are various festivals throughout the year.
The Chinese are great breeders of ornamental plants r which they force to assume the most fantastic forms; but I they appear to have no idea of raising improved breeds of I horses and cattle as in other countries.
All the waters of China—rivers, lakes, canals, and even ) ditches—are full of fish, owing partly to the artificial means by which the supply is increased.
One of China's chief needs is railroads and good roads. Some of the rich interior provinces are practically shut off I from trade with the rest of China and the world because of the lack of transportation facilities. Chinese roads are generally mere tracks, covered with blinding dust or mud and impassable to horses or carts. Both men and goods are usually transported in a kind of wheelbarrow with a large wheel in the center.
Railroads, constructed usually under concessions to foreign capitalists, are rapidly increasing. At present there are more than 6,000 miles open to traffic, and more than 2,000 miles under construction.
Most of the inland trade is carried on by means of the network of rivers and canals which ramify all over the prov inces. These swarm so thickly with junks and barges and smaller boats that the tonnage belonging to China is said to be almost as great as that belonging to all other nations combined.
In the new flag of China the old yellow dragon has been replaced by five stripes—crimson, yellow, white, blue, and black—to denote the five racial stocks, Mongol, Chinese, Manchu, Turki, and Tibetan.
An important event in China's history in the 19th cen tury, not mentioned above, was the great Taiping Rebellion, which for 14 years wasted some of the fairest provinces and cost many million lives—some say 20,000,000. It began as a religious movement, like the Boxer Rebellion, but became a nationalist revolt against the Manchu rule. For a time an American adventurer, Gen. Frederick T. Ward, com manded the Imperial forces which with European aid fought against the rebels. After he was killed (1862) the task of crushing the rebellion fell to his subordinate, the picturesque British officer known as "Chinese" Gordon (see Gordon, Charles George).