This will help a great deal to defray the expenses of improving the waterway for navigation and for preventing floods in this Delta.
b. The West River
The West River is at present navigable for comparatively large river steamers up to Wuchow, a distance of 220 miles by water from Canton, and for small steamers up to Nanning, a distance of 500 miles from Canton, at all seasons. As for small crafts, the West River is navigable in most of its branches, west to the Yunnan frontier, north to Kweichow, northeast to Hunan and the Yangtze Valley by the Shingan Canal.
In improving the West River for navigation I shall divide the work into subsections as follows:
- (1) From Samshui to Wuchow.
- (2) From Wuchow to the junction of the Liukiang.
- (3) Kweikiang or the North Branch of the West River from Wuchow to Kweilin and beyond.
- (4) The South Branch from Shunchow to Nanning.
(1) From Samshui to Wuchow. This part of the West River is generally deep and does not need much improvement for vessels up to ten-foot draught excepting at a few points. The midstream rocks should be blasted and removed and sand banks and dilating parts
