Hang-chow-foo is the Kinsai of Marco Polo, who describes it as the finest and noblest city in the world, and speaks enthusiastically of the number and splendour of its mansions and the wealth and luxuriance of its inhabitants. According to his authority it had a circuit of 100 miles, and no fewer than 12,000 bridges and 3000 baths. The name Kinsai, which appears in Wassaf as Khanzai, in Ibn Batuta as Khansa, in Ordericus as Camsay, and elsewhere as Campsay and Cassay, is really a corruption of the Chinese King-se, capital, the same word which is still applied to Peking. From the 10th to the 13th century (960–1272) the city, whose real name was then Ling-nan, was the capital of Southern China and the seat of the Sung dynasty, which was dethroned by the Mongolians shortly before Marco Polo's visit. Up to 1861, when it was laid in ruins by the Taipings, Hangchow continued to maintain its position as one of the most flourishing cities in the empire, and though for a time it lay comparatively desolate, it has considerably recovered within recent years. It is the seat of the governor of Che-Keang; but the governor-general or viceroy for Che-Keang and Fuh-Keen is now located at Fuh-chow. See Colonel Yule’s edition of Marco Polo, vol. ii., for a plan of the city and further details.
HANKA, Wenceslaus or Waklaw (1791–1861), a Bohemian philologist, was born at Horeniowes, a hamlet of eastern Bohemia, on June 10, 1791. He attended the village school in winter only, being occupied during the summjr on his father s farm. While still young he acquired a knowledge of Polish and Servian from some soldiers billeted in the neighbourhood, and in 1 807 he was sent to school at Koniggratz, to escape the conscription. Pro ceeding then to Prague, he engaged in the study of philosophy, and founded a society for the cultivation of the Czech language. At Vienna, where he afterwards studied law, he established a Czech periodical ; and in 1813 he made the acquaintance of Dobrowsky, the emi nent philologist. On September 16, 1817, Hanka made th.3 discovery of some ancient Bohemian manuscript poems of the 13th and 14th century in the church-tower of the vill ige of Kr.ilodwor, or Kb niginhof. These were published in 1818, under the title Kralodivorsky Rukopis, with a German translation by Swoboda. Great doubt, however, was felt as to their genuineness ; and Dobrowsky, by pro nouncing The Judgment of Libussa, another manuscript found by Hanka, an " obvious fraud," confirmed the sus picion. But some years afterwards Dobrowsky saw fit to modify his decision; and in 1840, after a careful examin ation of the manuscripts by two eminent antiquaries, Hanka was ultimately vindicated. A translation into English, The Manuscript of the Queen s Court, was made by Wratis- law in 1852. The originals w T ere presented by the dis coverer to the Bohemian Museum at Prague, of which he was appointed librarian in 1818. In 1848 Hanka took part in the Slavonic congress and other peaceful national demonstrations, being ths founder of the political society Slovanska Lipa. He was elected to the imperial diet at Vienna, but declined to take his seat. In the winter of 1848 he became lecturer and in 1849 professor of Slavonic languages in the university of Prague, where he died, January 12, 1861.
His chief works and editions are the following: Hankoivy Pjsiu (1818), a volume of poems; Starolyla Skladanie (1817-1823), in 5 vols., a collection of old Bohemian poems, chiefly from unpublished manuscripts; A Short History of the Slavonic Peoples (1S18); A Bohemian Grammar (1822) and A Polish Grammar (1839), these grammars were composed on a plan suggested by Dobrowsky; Igor (1821), an ancient Russian epic, with a translation into Bohemian; a part of the Gospels from the Rheims manuscript in the Glagolitic character (1846) ; the old Bohemian Chronicles of Lalimil ^1848) and Procop Lupac (1848); Evangel ium Ostremis (1853).
HANKOW (that is, the “Mouth of the Han”), the great commercial centre of the middle portion of the Chinese empire, and since 1858 one of the principal places opened to foreign trade. It is situated on the northern side of the Yang-tse-kiang at its junction with the Han river, about 450 miles west of Shanghai in 30° 32′ 51″ N. lat. and 114° 19′ 55″ E. long., at an absolute height of 150 feet. By the Chinese it is not considered a separate city, but as a suburb of the now decadent city of Hanyang; and it may almost be said to stand in a similar relation to Wu-chang the capital of the province of Hupeh, which lies immediately opposite on the southern bank of the Yang-tse-kiang. Hankow extends for about a mile along the main river and about two and a half along the Han. It is protected by a wall 18 feet high, which was erected in 1863 at an expense of £250,000, and has a circuit of about 4 miles. In 1861 the port was declared open by James Hope and Sir Harry S. Parkes, C.B., and the site of a British settlement was selected in the east end of the town, with a river frontage of 2400 feet, and a depth of from 1200 to 1500. The building area, divided into 108 lots, was as quickly bought up, and houses after the Shanghai style were erected. Leases were granted to foreigners as well as to British subjects. A municipal council was formed, and by 1863 a great embankment and a roadway were completed along the river, which has the awkward fashion of rising as much as 50 feet or more above its ordinary levels, and not unfrequently, as in 1849 and 1866, lays a large part of the town under water. On the former occasion little was left uncovered but the roofs of the houses. The success of the foreign settlement has not been so great as was anticipated: even in 1866 the number of foreign residents was 125 instead of 150 as in 1863. Chinese merchants have rapidly got even the foreign trade into their hands: in 1873 they began to run steamers on the river; in 1875 they purchased the property of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company; and in 1876 they had 57 steamers flying the national flag. Besides tea, which is the staple, the exports of Hankow are leaf tobacco, of which 6,700,000 ℔ was sent to Europe in 1876, raw silk mainly obtained from Szechuen, rhubarb, gall-nuts, and musk. Of this last the quantity was as much as 2937 ℔ at ₤20 sterling per ℔. Tea was first sent direct to London in 1864–65; in 1876 this market received from Hankow no less than 34,540,000 ℔ out of a total export of 86,402,271 ℔. The Russian merchants, who are fixing their brick-tea factories in the town, obtained 12,844,476 ℔ in the same year. They send their goods by water to Tientsin, and thence to Kalgan partly by land and partly by water. A public assay office was established at Hankow in 1864. The Roman Catholics, the London Missionary Society, and the Wesleyans have all missions in the town; and there are two missionary hospitals. Before the Taiping wars, the full brunt of which fell on this part of the country, the sister cities of Hankow, Hanyang, and Wu-chang-fu had a population, it is said, of over 5,000,000. At present Hankow has from 600,000 to 800,000 (Sossnoffsky says only 300,000), and the other two from 400,000 to 700,000.
Staffordshire, England, is situated in the centre of the pottery district, 2 miles E.N.E. of Stoke-upon-Trent, and
18 miles N. of Stafford. It is indebted for its rise and