A tumultuous waterway, the Yangtze ranks second after the Amazon in terms of discharge. Fed by copious amounts of melting snow and also heavy rains, the river's flow is 10 times greater than China's Huang Ho (Hwang River, Huanghe; also known in English as the Yellow River).

[…] everything had become so still that the crisping of the snow under foot might be heard nearly half a verst round.

In the 1840s, however, these two counties were among the worst affected when Ireland's potatoes -- those big floury Lumpers that sustained millions -- began to rot.

Here the boy was made to strip, and the commissioner, Mr Symonds, found a large cicatrix likely to have been occasioned by such an instrument...