But there has been another reason why Shanghai has prospered beyond all the other British ports of China. "All our ports except Shanghai are separated from the inland waters of China by a chain of mountains. Inside those mountains lies the vast bulk of the empire of China, outside lie our trading ports." Again, the Yang-tse-kiang, which flows out just at Shanghai, affords an easy route by which the goods consigned to that port may reach the interior of the country, and the system of innumerable canals which intersect it.