APPENDIXI
CHINESE GABLED BRIDGES
Marco Polofound them in several places, particularly in Hang-cheu, the ancient capital of Southern China. This noble city has on one side the Si-hu, or western lake, and on the other is the vast river Tsien-tang-kiang, which at high tide is nearly four miles in width. Its waters are distributed by canals through every quarter of Hang-cheu, so that many bridges are necessary. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, when Marco Polo made visits to Hang-cheu (which he described as Kin-sai, or the “celestial cityâ€), bridges over the canals were so frequent that popular opinion, glad to show off an Oriental exaggeration, declared their number to be twelve thousand, though a census had not been taken. “Those which are thrown over the principal canals,†says Polo, “and are connected with the main streets, have arches so high, and built with so much skill, that vessels with their masts can pass under them, whilst, at the same time, carts and horses are passing over their heads,—so well is the slope from the streets adapted to the height of the arch.†And another early traveller, P. Le Comte, with graphic brevity, writes as follows of the grand canal:“Outre ces digues, on a basti une infinité de ponts pour la communication des terres: ils sont de trois, de cinq, et de sept arches; celle du milieu est extraordinairement haute, afin que les barques en passant ne soient pas obligées d’abaisser leurs masts†(“Nouv. Mém. de la Chine,â€Tom.1,p.161). There is also a description written by Barrow, who visited Hang-cheu before 1830, andwhose testimony confirms that of much earlier travellers. Barrow was impressed by “a great variety of bridges†that spanned most of the canals. Some had “piers of such an extraordinary height, that the largest vessels, of two hundred tons, sailed under them without striking their masts.†Last of all, in recent photographs the stone bridges of China are steep whenever they are built with arches, so we can follow the Chinese gabled bridge from our own time to the thirteenth century. They came into use partly because they were convenient to shipping, and partly because they could be erected from low embankments.