After a 12-day trip across the mountains, von Richthofen reached the Mache ferry harbor in Dongyang. There, he hired two bamboo rafts and traveled about 35 km to Fotang. It was a very hot and sunny day. All the villages along the way were praying to the Dragon King for rain.

In addition to providing a detailed description of the raft—which according to him consisted of three special small bamboo rafts, with the front section tilted up and the two rear sections hanging loosely on the front section so that the three sections formed an easy-to-maneuver raft—he also talked about the goods carried by the raft, which included ham, tea leaves, wax, and various herbs being brought downriver, and salt, pottery, iron utensils, bricks, lime, and cotton products being transported upriver. Once in Fotang, he said that a somewhat important bazaar was formed there.

It did not take long, then, to reach the city of Jinhua. The first thing that caught von Richthofen’s sight was a tall, magnificent tower, which must have been Wanfo Pagoda. He was also impressed by the strong city walls, which were built with red sandstone and were mostly covered by climbing plants.

Securing the crafts, von Richthofen explored the city on foot and saw signs of a wounded city left behind by the Taiping Army, which had torn away the prosperity of Jinhua—a deserted and sparsely populated city, in his eyes. He also mentions a strong and beautiful bridge built of red sandstone, with a magnificent arch on a sturdy pier, lying between the city and the opposite bank. The gentleness of Jinhua’s people impressed him, who noted that despite his different appearance, locals would be very friendly and rarely followed him.

The following day, their rafts took them to Lanxi. Though it had also been affected by the Taiping Army, Lanxi had recovered the original appearance of the city. In his text, von Richthofen mentioned an interesting point regarding the decline of Lanxi: we usually think that it is due to the development of railway shipping, but, instead, von Richthofen, early in 1871, already had the impression of an old prosperity gone forever. As a matter of fact, he observed that although the major waterway from Guangzhou to Hangzhou was being used to make Lanxi very prosperous, it was even back then being overshadowed by the development of steamship lines along the seacoast. Goods passing from Guangzhou to the north were no longer transported along the numerous inland waterways, but directly by sea steamers to Shanghai, shortening the shipment time to a few days. (English text edited by Kendra Fiddler)