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THROUGH
THE YVYANG-TSE GORGES

ute | *WWOY SulAVS-9JV] IO
_, pay ,, Surkurdwooov uo Surpurys ssoiq, asauryo ur soy ny at ‘asy-Suvg taddq uo ywoq-asnoyy SUIN[OAVTL,

THROUGH
‘THE YANG-TSE GORGES

OR

TRADE AND TRAVEL IN
WESTERN CHINA

BY

ARCHIBALD JOHN LITTLE, F.R.GS.

“Let me journey down
On the great river, that from town to town,
Through meadow miles ; ’twixt gorges of the hills,
Sweeps through the land’s whole length, and ever fills
Its widening channel deeper.” —Yu-Pe-Ya's Lute.

“Good government obtains, when those who are near are made happy, and those who are
far off are attracted.”—Conructius, ‘‘ Lun yu,” xlii. 16, 2.

THIRD AND REVISED EDITION, WITH MAP AND
ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY
LIMITED
St, Bunstan’s ouse
FETTER Lane, FLEET STREET, E.C,
1898
ov
& ity

ae ee ¥
“ye Oe Ge Q

Low's Popular Library of Travel and Adventure.

Uniform crown 8v0. volumes, fully Illustrated, bound in cloth,
Hatr-a-Crown each.

Ten Years’ Captivity in the Mahdi’s Camp, 1882-1892.
From the Original Manuscripts of Father Joseph Ohrwalder.
By Colonel F. R. WinGate, R.A. Also Limited Edition at
6d., just published.

How I Found Livingstone, Including Four Months’ Residence
with Dr, Livingstone. By Henry M. STANLEY.

The Cruise of the ‘Falcon.’ A Voyage to South America
ina Thirty-ton Yacht. By E. F. Knicut.

The Great Lone Land, A Record of Travel and Adventure in
North and West America. By Gen. Sir W. F. Butier, K.C.B.

Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa. By Lord
RanvotrH CHURCHILL.

The River Congo. From the Mouth to Bél6bé6. By H. H.
Jounston, C.M.G.

Clear Round! Seeds of Story from other Countries ; a Chronicle
of Links and Rivets in this World’s Girdle. By E. A. Gorpon.

The Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Challenger.’ Scenes in Many Lands,
Voyages over Many Seas. By W. J. J. Spry, R.N., F.R.G.S.

Through Masai Land, A Journey of Exploration among the
Snow-clad Volcanic Mountains and Strange Tribes of tastern
Equatorial Africa. By JoszrpH THomson.

The Wild North Land, By Gen. Sir Wm. F. Butter, K.C.B.

Coomassie. The Story of the Campaign in Africa, 19: fe
By H. M. Stantey, M.P. be nsott

Magdala. The Story of the Abyssinian Campaign of 1866-67.
By H. M. Stranvey, M.P.

Hausaland. By Rev. C, H. Rorinson, M.A.

Two Kings of Uganda. By Rev. R. P. Asus, M.A.

Two Roving Englishmen in Greece. By Isaner J.
ARMSTRONG.

How I Shot My Bears; or, Two Years’ Camp Life in Kullu
and Lahoul. By Mrs. R. H. Tyacke,

On the Indian Hills: Coffee Planting in Southern India. By
Epwin LestTER ARNOLD.

On Horseback through Asia Minor. By Col. Frep Burnasy.

Lonpon :
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, Limitep,
Sr. Dunstan’s Houss, Fetter Lanz, E.C.

To

MY WIFE,.

‘

THE UNTIRING COMPANION OF MY TRAVELS, TO WHOSE SKILL
WITH THE CAMERA I OWE THE VIEWS OF THE
SCENERY, OFTEN TAKEN AMIDST

GREAT DIFFICULTIES,

3 Dedicate this Work.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

os

THE following pages comprise little more than a
transcript of the journal kept by me during a two
months’ journey from Shanghai, the metropolis of
the coast, to Chung-king, the commercial metropolis
of Western China, This journal was written up each
night, as I travelled along in the native boat, and was
despatched home by successive mail for the amuse-
ment of my friends in England. I have been induced
to publish it in the belief that impressions formed and
recorded day by day on the spot, give a better idea of
the actual state of things in China than many of the
elaborate and carefully compiled books which attempt
a more exhaustive description of the country.

So much interest is now felt at home in the
“Flowery Land,” and such very erroneous conceptions
appear to be entertained in regard to China, her
wealth, her strength and prowess, and her value as
an ally—qualities of which, in my opinion, only the
remote potentiality exists at present—that no apology
is needed for presenting a literal picture of the country
I traversed.

Vill Preface to the First Edition

With the exception of the ubiquitous missionary,
the travellers who have ascended the “Great (and
sole) Highway” of China to its highest navigable
point may bé counted on the fingers of one hand. So
tedious are the antiquated modes of travel, that of the
thousands of European residents at the treaty ports,
few have the leisure or inclination to journey outside
of the routes covered by our “ barbarian” steamers.
Of the voyage to Chung-king, up the Yang-tse river,
a distance of 1500 miles, 1000 miles are traversed by
steamers to Ichang in a week’s time. The remaining
500 miles occupy from five to six weeks, a longer time
than it takes to go from London to Shanghai. Since
the execution of the celebrated “ Chefoo Convention”
in 1875, the placing of steamers on this upper route
has been under discussion, but Chinese obstructiveness
has thus far succeeded in staving off the evil day, and
nothing but strong pressure on the part of the foreign
ministers accredited to the Court of Pekin will bring
about this much-needed innovation, an innovation as
much desired by the native merchants and traders as
it is dreaded by the official and literary classes. Apart
from the laudable fear of injury to the livelihood of
the existing junk-men, anything that leads to further
contact between foreigners and the people at large is
deprecated as lessening the influence of the profoundly
ignorant ruling class; and thus, notwithstanding the
heavy losses in life and property that the present
system of navigation entails, this further contemplated

Preface to the First Edition ix

invasion of the inner waters of the Empire is strenu-
ously resisted.

In reading this journal, in which I have depicted
the existing difficulties of the route, it must be borne
in mind that the Yang-tse is not only the main, but
the sole road of intercommunication between the east
and west of this vast Empire. Roads, properly so
called, do not exist in China ; narrow footpaths alone
connect one town and village with another, and,
except by the waterways, nothing can be transported
from place to place but on men’s backs. In the far
north, it is true, cart-tracks exist, and clumsy two-
wheeled springless carts are there in use, but in
Central and Southern China, land travel is absolutely
confined to paths, so narrow that two pedestrians
have often a difficulty in passing each other. Traces
of magnificent paved roads, of the ancient dynasties,
still exist in nearly every province; but they have
been destroyed by neglect, and have been disused for
centuries past. Since the date of the Mongol in-
vasion (1279), every incentive to progress has come
from without, and every foreign well-wisher of the
Empire, especially if resident, is impelled to do his
utmost to carry on this progress,

The rulers of China should take to heart Bacon's
words: “ Since things alter for the worst spontaneously,
if they be not altered for the better designedly, what
end will there be of evil?” Railways have been
long talked of, but so far, the short line, built some

2 Preface to the First Edition

years ago, which connects the Government coal-mine
of Kai-ping with the nearest canal, is the only road
in existence. Trunk-lines running north and south
are said to have been authorized, but as long as the
Government eschews foreign aid they are not likely
to be built. A line running east and west presents
almost insuperable difficulties, owing to the precipitous
mountains and deep gorges into which the whole
country west of Ichang is cut up. Hence the
necessity of turning the great natural highway of the
Yang-tse tothe best advantage. Of the great gain
to trade, and to British manufacturing interests more
especially, which the cheapness of intercommunication
between Eastern and Western China would effect, I
have spoken more at length in my twelfth chapter.

I must not conclude without paying a tribute of
admiration to Captain Blakiston and Dr. Alfred
Barton, for their valuable and accurate work, “ Five
Months on the Yang-tse.” These energetic pioneers
preceded me over the same ground just twenty years
before. Nothing has altered in the interval, and but
for the fact that their want of knowledge of the
language debarred them from free intercourse with
the people, and so cut them off from many interesting

social facts, the publication of this journal would have
no raison a'ttre.

ARCHIBALD JOHN LITTLE,
ICHANG, Fly 16th, 1887.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

——+

NOTWITHSTANDING that ten years have elapsed
since the last edition of this book was published, the
description of the grand Gorges of the Yang-tse
remains as true and as fresh as on the day it
was written, and little apology is needed for again
bringing the scene before the public eye. The out-
side trade of Szechuan, estimated roughly at about
five millions sterling, is still carried on by a fleet of
eight to ten thousand junks, whose crews animate the
rocks and precipices of the wild scenery, their shouts
re-echoing from cliff to cliff as they toil over the
broken ground. But during these ten years much
has happened in China. The great unwieldy empire
has been rudely shaken by the French war in 1885,
and by the Japanese war in 1895, which brought
about, the latter especially, a cruel exposure of
China’s weakness. This weakness was well known
to residents on the spot, and should have been better
appreciated and prepared for by our leading poli-
ticians at home. Inthe following pages of my Diary,

xil Preface to the Third Edition

written in 1883, it will be seen that I predicted the
collapse that was then imminent, and demonstrated
the folly of continuing our attempts to conciliate
the corrupt camarilla ruling in Peking, and the worth-
lessness of China as an ally. It was this yielding
to the worst features of Chinese conservatism that
frustrated my original attempt to open the Upper
Yang-tse to steam. Now, at last, thanks to the
determination of the Japanese, and to our own
Government’s fortunate change of front, since the
appointment to Peking of our present energetic
Minister, Sir Claude Macdonald, a pioneer steamer
has ascended to Chung-king, and the account of the
voyage is set forth in the last chapter of the book.

ORIENTAL CLUB, LONDON,
October 7th, 1808.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

The Government of the Chinese—Revolutions—Trade—Taxes—
Our interests in Szechuan—Imports and exports—Com-
parative trade of all the provinces

CHAPTER II.
SHANGHAI TO ICHANG,

Shanghai to Ichang—Hankow—A Yang-tse boat—Shasze--The
plains of Hupeh—A Szechuan river-boat—Flooded districts
— Approach to the hills—Ichang.

CHAPTER III.
ICHANG AND ITS ENVIRONS.

The foreign community—Fishing with otters—‘‘ Feng Shui ”—
The conglomerate country—Cave of the Dragon King—
Underground Lake—The ‘‘Dome”—Startling coup-Pazl
—Cloud-mist Mountain—Chinese country house—Un-
expected hospitality—Master and servant—Auspicious site
—Woodcutters—Steep climb—Chinese ‘‘ Pahs”—Taoist
temple—Magnificent prospect—Ascent of the Golden Peak
—Chinese candles—A model hotel bill—Plank a
Return to Ichang . . . .

PAGE

37

xiv Contents

CHAPTER IV.
ABOVE ICHANG.

Start for the gorges—Grand coup-d’ail—Tourist’s inscriptions—A
factory of boulders—Advantages of a light boat—A temple
school—A ‘* Feng Shui” problem . . a . .

CHAPTER V.
IN SZECHUAN.

The Customs at Kwei-chow—Transit passes—Their effect on the
provincial officialk—The drought—Anthracite at Kwei-chow
—Visit to a mandarin—A concert—Management of the
junks 4 5 : F . a . ‘ . .

CHAPTER VI.
ON TO CHUNG-KING.

Iron workers—Census taking—Site of old Chung-chow—A rain-
bringing opera—Deforesting of the country—Feng-tu—The
temple of the Chinése Pluto—Fu-chow—Chang-chow—First
sight of Chung-king . - ‘ : 3 é ; ‘

CHAPTER VII.
CHUNG-KING.

The weather—Morning calls—Visit to a Chinese country house—
A fine road—A tedious meal—Personal uncleanliness—The
Tung family—‘‘ Pee Shui” again—A tough yarn—An
inscription . . . x . ‘ . .

CHAPTER VIII.
CHUNG-KING.

Return to town—Catholic and other missions—Visitors—The
China Inland Mission—Native post—A Taoist temple—The
priests hard-up—Chinese banks—An ephemeral town—
Across the river—The Catholic cathedral—Charming sur-
roundings of the city—Filth within—Dull evenings—Chess
—Malt liquor—A public siege walls—Slow progress
of the missionaries

PAGE

50

87

107

138

153

Contents

CHAPTER IX.
CHUNG-KING,

Ponies—Silk weaving—Prehistoric caves—A fine country-house
—A Catholic chapel—A Buddhist oracle—The coal-workings
—Cost of getting and transporting coal—An eviction scrim-
mage—Ventilation—A huge coalfield—A farmhouse—
Opium-smoking—Agile ponies—Return by boat—Fine
scenery—Legends—The river rising—Trade guilds—
Another country-house—Civility of the Chung-kingese—
The women’s feet-—The Manchus—A_pseudo-European
dinner é : a ‘ .

CHAPTER X.
THE DOWNWARD VOYAGE,

Adieux—A crowded boat—Change to a salt-junk—A strange
manceuvre—A day on the rocks—Sham tea—Equipage of
the junk—The gorges once more—Mooring for the night—
Delays—Change to a wupan—Pirates—Féng Tu ‘

CHAPTER NI.
HANKOW.

Return to Ichang—Hankow—Changes in the river—Lifeboats—
Accidents—The ‘“‘awakening”? of China—Pliny on the
Chinese @ : is .

CHAPTER XII.
THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE YANG-TSE VALLEY.

ength and fall—Advance of the delta—Direction of river’s
course—The gorges and rapids—Absence of roads—Coal-
fields—The flora and fauna—Mineral wealth

CHAPTER XIII.
THE NEW “GLORIOUS” RAPID.

The great landslide—Earthquake phenomena—Steps taken to
modify the rapid—Need of Admiralty survey

XV

PAGE

176

213

242

272

Xvi Contents
CHAPTER XIV.

FIRST ASCENT BY STEAM.

Feasibility of steam navigation in Szechuan—Account of the first
ascent of the Yang-tse rapids by steam in 1898—Remarks . 283

APPENDIX.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME FROM THE ‘‘ FOREIGN” RESIDENTS
IN CHUNG-KING. z . . . . « 301

INDEX . . . : ‘ . ‘ : + 303

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE PAGE

Travelling House-boat on Upper Yang-tse, the Author in
Chinese Dress standing on accompanying “ Red,” or
Life-saving Boat . : : : . Frontispiece)

Buddhist Temple on Summit of Conglomerate Pinnacle
1200 Feet high ; on Yang-tse River near Ichang (p. 34)

Junks in Ichang, with Masts erected preparatory to starting
up Stream (p. 38). .

View of “The Pyramid,” on Opposite Bank, taken from
the Promenade on Top of Ichang City Wall. This
Natural Pyramid of Sandstone, rising 500 Feet above
the River, is almost identical in Size and Shape with
the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt (p. 40)

Ferry opposite Ichang City at Mouth of Small River:
Sandstone Cliff (p. 50).

House-boat in Ichang Gorge; Dangerous Rock, “the
Sleeping Pig” (covered in Summer), in Middle
Distance : :

‘Pillar of Heaven” in Ichang Gorge; Limestone Pinnacle
rising 1800 Feet above River

One of our Crew on Tow-path near Niu-kan Gorge .

Junks waiting their Turn to ascend New Rapid. In

Summer Freshets, River rises to Foot of Houses on
Right. Shin t’an.

36

36

46

46

52

XVili List of Illustrations

TO FACE PAGE

Home of Retired “Armateur” at Shin t’an, Mouth of
Pingshu Gorge .

Seven-storied Pagoda below Patung. Note Fluted Rock,
about so Feet High, on Right Hand, being Ancient
“ Pot-holes” in the Limestone worn through by the
Current A :

Our House-boat, with Cliff, in Wushan Gorge .

Travelling House-boat, with Tender, moored in Wushan
Gorge : Nude Figure in Foreground, Man who swims
out to disengage the Tow-lines: Tender is steered by
Long Stern-sweep: House-boat with Long Bow-
sweep .

Entrance to Bellows Gorge; Cliffs 3000 and 4000 Feet.
In the cliff on the right are cut the Square Holes of
Méng-liang’s Ladder .

Kwei-chow Fu, Five Miles from Upper Entrance to
Gorges ; Entrance shown in Split Hill on Left, Height
3000 to 4000 Feet : .

Trackers hauling on Bamboo Tow-lines at Entrance to
Ping-shu Gorge

Chang-fei’s Temple, opposite Yiinyang, Winter Level. In
Summer, Foreground covered to a Depth of 50 Feet.

“ Full Moon” Pavilion in Garden of Temple dedicated to
Changfei, Hero of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
(A.D. 200), opposite City of Yiinyang: Wall and Pillars
Stone, Roofs Thatch (p. 100) ; : ;

Five-storied Pagoda at Féng-tu (p. 120)
Szechuan Poppy-field in Bloom, in Month of April .

Free School in Szechuan: Characters “I Shud” (Free
Teaching) over Door .

Cargo-boat rowing down Stream (p. 135) .

64

70
72

78

82

138

List of Illustrations

XIX

TO FACE PAGE

Entrance Gate of Temple outside Walls of Chung-king
City ; the Chinese Characters are, “ Cave of Genii and
Spirits ” (p. 139)

Green and Yellow Tiled Roof of Pavilion . 6)

Graves on Range of Hills opposite Chung-king : the two
“Characters” cut in the Limestone indicate that this
Mountain is a Reproduction of the Sacred “ Mount
T‘u” in Shantung Province (p. 158)

Roof Corner, Guildhall, Chung-king (p. 164)

Dinner-party in Chung-king: Guests facing Theatrical
Performance; Intervening Courtyard, or “ Pit” filled
with freely admitted Audience from the Street (p. 200)

Hoangko Shu, and Ficus infectoria with Shrine as usual
round Roots, and my Stallion from Province Kwei-
chow, with whom I travelled 1500 Miles

Stage Court in Hukwang Guildhall, Chung-king

Garden in Country-seat of the Yuen Family, outside
Chung-king .

Salt Junk, about 70 Tons, with’Screw-oars or “ Yuloes”
alongside, moored near Entrance to Ichang Gorge:
bound down River, Mast lashed alongside .

Trackers hauling Junk up the Shin t’an, or New Rapid

City of Chung-king, built on Rocky Peninsula at Junction
of Kia-ling River, from the North and Yang-tse; View
taken from South Bank of Yang-tse . :

Pavilion in Garden of “ White Emperor’s ot on Cliff at
Mouth of Bellows Gorge ‘ :

“ We were the First,” etc.

138
158

158
164

THE
BRITISH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

— eee

Tue British sphere of influence or interest, as it has
been indifferently described by our Ministers in Parliament,
is defined in the despatch of Sir Claude Macdonald to the
Tsung-li-Yamén of the rgth February of this year (1898), as
“the Yang-tse region” and the “provinces adjoining the
Yang-tse.” A more exact definition, and one that we have
attempted to embody in the map attached to this work, is
the “ Yang-tse Basin”: the boundaries of this region are
naturally and indisputably defined by the crests of the water
partings that surround the catchment area; or, in plain
English, the area of our so-called sphere comprises the valley
of the Yang-tse and the valleys of its tributaries. It is to
China what the valley of the Mississippi is to North
America, Shanghai’s situation at the mouth of the Yang-tse
being analogous to that of New Orleans on the Mississippi ;
and what the valley of the Amazon is to the South American
continent, the total area of which is a little greater than that
of the Chinese Empire. In each case it is the heart of a
continent as represented by the valley of its greatest river.
In the case of China, this heart comprises an area of 600,000
square miles, inhabited by about 180,000,000 of the most
industrious and peaceable people on the world’s surface.
It opens out a magnificent prospect for British enterprise,
while leaving vast regions in the wide Chinese Empire open
to other Powers, should the wun.ortunate alternative of
partition of spheres take the place o” equal opportunities for
all everywhere, in which case we must accept the Yang-tse
basin as a pis-aller and lose no more time in securing the

region allotted as our sphere by effective occupation.
a

xxli Zhe British Sphere of Influence

The watershed or catchment area of the Yang-tse basin
comprises, outside the Tibetan plateau, the six large pro-
vinces of Szechuan, Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Nganhui and
Kiangsu, part of Chekiang, the greater part of Honan,
besides the northern drainage area of the provinces of
Yunnan and Kweichow ; a large order certainly, but in no
way incommensurate with our present share in the foreign
trade of the Empire. Of this trade British imports and
exports amount to fully two-thirds of the whole, while the
area in question barely covers two-fifths of China proper,
entirely excluding the vast and potentially rich regions of
Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan and Tibet, all which are
still in name subject to the “Son of Heaven.” This region,
forming the British sphere, extends roughly between the
twenty-eighth and thirty-second parallels of north latitude,
and between the ninety-eighth and one hundred and
eighteenth meridians of east longitude. South of this wide
sphere we find the five rich provinces of Fuhkien,
Kwangtung, Kwangsi, Kweichow and Yunnan; the last
three generally acknowledged as the French sphere,
together with the former Chinese dependencies of Annam
and Tongking, now definitely annexed to France. Co-
terminous with our sphere on the north, the boundary line
being the crests of the mountain ranges that divide the two
basins, lies the great valley-plain (Tiefebene) of the Yellow
River, the ancient home of the Chinese race and southern
boundary of China until about the beginning of the
Christian era.

This Yellow River basin comprises the provinces of
Kansu, Shensi, Shansi, Shantung, and the Metropolitan
province of Chihli—all provinces with a rich soil and
prosperous population, said to be immeasurably rich in
minerals, Their climate is temperate, and hence wheat
and millet take the place of the rice-fields, the sugar,

The British Sphere of Influence xxiii

opium, and cotton of the South. The climate of North
China is generally considered one of the finest in the world,
and hence, if a partition is to be made, I would gladly
take it in exchange for the somewhat more productive but
undoubtedly malarious valley of the Yang-tse. To the north
of these, again, we have the vast territories of Manchuria
and Mongolia—both regions originally pastoral, now invaded
by the agricultural settlements of immigrants from China
proper. Manchuria is rich in gold, and has a hardy popu-
lation of some twenty millions; this province, the cradle of
the reigning dynasty, has now been overrun by Russia,
and the latest telegrams announce the forcible seizure of
Newchwang, its one Treaty Port, by the Russians.

In an article in the last September number of the
Contemporary Review I figured out the present inter-port
trade on the Yang-tse River at £30,000,000, and added my
opinion that, given a stable and progressive Government,
affording encouragement to capitalists, with security for their
investments—resulting in improved means of communication
and a corresponding development of its natural resources—
the Yang-tse valley will increase its trade by leaps and
bounds, and the £30,000,000 of to-day will be £300,000,000
to-morrow. I added the grounds upon which I based my
expectation of this rapid increase, and wound up by asking,
What is our Government going to do in regard to our
so-called sphere ?

To this question it appears to me that capitalists in this
country, and British merchants in China, have a right to
demand a definite answer. We were told that the “open
door” policy would be upheld even at the cost of war,
These were brave words, as spoken by Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach in his celebrated Bristol speech, and met a
hearty response from Britons on the spot. They have
unfortunately not been upheld: if they had been there would

xxiv Zhe British Sphere of Influence

have been no war. As things now are, Russia has cancelled
a British lien on the railway connecting the Treaty Port of
Newchwang with the existing Tientsin line; Germany has
warned us off Shantung; France puts a transit duty of
ten per cent. on British goods from Hong Kong for the
200 miles distance by the Red River of Tongking to Laokai,
on the Yunnan border; at the same time she has compelled
the wretched Chinese Government to admit goods over her
border for two-thirds of the five per cent. duty collected by
the Maritime Customs at the other Chinese ports, This is
one instance of many how the object of France and Russia is
to steal a revenue from our trade with China rather than the
promotion of trade itself. Our ports and the Chinese Treaty
Ports are free to all, Our rivals will not grant this
reciprocity. Hence, if our Government does not wake up
and take hold of the subject seriously, and make the occupa-
tion of our sphere effective while there is yet time to do so,
we shall learn some fine morning that our rivals have
arranged Chinese affairs to suit their own interests exclusively.
Then with preferential transit and other tariffs directed
against us, we shall have handed over the solid work of
three generations of Britons in China to our unscrupulous
rivals ; or else at last the British people will be aroused, and
the Government, ~olens volens, driven to fight for our tradal
existence in the Far East; and this is the course to which
we seem helplessly drifting. Two years ago by a firm
stand we might have prevented the partition of the venerable
Empire whose weakness we have done so much to expose. It
isa sad alternative, but to-day there is no other left us but to
take our share in the partition now going on, and this no more
in our own interest than in that of the people of China.

ORIENTAL CLuB, Lonpon,
October, 1898.

THROUGH THE YANG-TSE GORGES

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY,

The government of the Chinese—Revolutions—Trade—Taxes—Our
interests in Szechuan—Imports and exports—Comparative tra-le
of all the provinces.

THE history of our intercourse with China, from the days of
the East India Company until now, is nothing but the record
of a continuous struggle to open up and develop trade, with
a people who, from the days of Pliny, “ipsis feris persimiles,
coetus reliquorum mortalium fugiunt.” There is some-
thing pathetic in the honest persistency with which the
people and their officials have vainly struggled to keep
themselves uncontaminated from the outer world, and it is
impossible for any disinterested onlooker not to sympathize
heartily with them. An enormous population has here
solved, imperfectly, of course, but to a comparatively suc-
cessful degree, the problem of the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. The venality of the officials notwith-
standing, the people are, if not well governed, certainly not
misgoverned ; riches are fairly distributed, and the contrast
of grinding poverty with arrogant wealth, the rule in Europe,
is the exception here. Taxation is nominal, and such is
the innate and universal love of order, that the reserve of
force behind the decrees of the magistrate is limited to a
B

2 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

few hundred men in a province as large as an European
kingdom. Competent investigators compute the total cost
of the central and local governments at not more than
40,000,000 a year, say two shillings per head for the whole
population. Education is universal and voluntary.

No wonder that such results, due to the universal
acceptance of the Confucian Ethics, should make the
people look askance at innovations coming from the West,
where, as the Chinese say, notwithstanding their marked
superiority in applied mechanics, nations live in a perma-
nent condition of armed peace, the monotonous pressure of
which is only relieved by the still worse calamity of frequent
wars, with their attendant burdens of debt and pauperism.

Revolutions occur at long intervals in China, but the
normal state of the Empire is peace. Thus since the last
change of dynasty (A.D. 1644), the Chinese have enjoyed
the blessings of peace and prosperity uninterruptedly, with
the exception of the petty wars of this century with ourselves
and the French. Even the terrible Taiping rebellion (1848
to 1864) must be attributed to the unwanted presence of
the “foreigner” in the inner land. It was the aggressive
zeal of American missionaries in Canton fifty years ago
which resulted in the conversion of the fanatical leader,
Hung-hsiu-chuen, often cited as the most genuine although
misguided convert to Christianity, which the Empire has pro-
duced, and who modelled his action on that of the Jewish
leaders, his war-cry being “ She yao /” “Slay the idolaters !”
And slay he did; it is calculated that over twenty millions
of people perished by the swords of the Taipings and the
attendant famines. It was the Thirty Years’ War over
again, re-enacted on another stage. Had it succeeded,
China would undoubtedly have been Christian, though
possibly differing from us in form. The cruelties practised by

Our Policy in China 3

the Taipings in their progress alienated public opinion from
their cause, and hence we joined our quondam enemies,
the Manchus, in suppressing the rebellion, lent Gordon to
the Imperialists to train and lead the “ Ever-victorious
Army” of six thousand disciplined men, and restored
Confucianism and countenanced a conservative reaction
which, after thirty years’ undisputed sway, has now brought
the mighty Empire once more to a crisis of dissolution. We
have allowed the Chinese mandarins to persist in their
outré conservatism which will have none of the evil thing
called Progress. Instead of actively promoting reforms and
innovations, in the way that Sir Harry Parkes, in Tokio,
backed up young Japan, even at the cost of civil war, our
Government has in China yielded to the corrupt Court at
Peking, and, until quite recently, discouraged British enter-
prise with the pitiful result we see to-day—China ruined by
her defeat at the hands of the Japanese, and the resulting
exorbitant indemnity ; and our trade generally stationary,
and in part unfairly excluded from those outlying districts of
the Empire already seized by our European rivals,

For, viewing the enormous population, now again estimated
at over 400,000,000, the richness of the soil, the genial
climate, the inexhaustible mineral wealth, and, above all,
the untiring industry of the people, the trade at present
carried on is not a tithe of that which we should naturally
look for. In the number of Great Britain’s foreign
customers China proper takes seventeenth rank, being just
on a par with Scandinavia. Our exports to the Celestial
Empire are not one-fourth of those to the United States,
with a population of 60,000,000; just one-sixth of our
exports to British India, and not one-tenth of that to our
Australian and other Colonies, all, except India, countries
fenced in with hostile tariffs ranging from thirty to sixty per

4 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

cent., while with China, according to treaty, our imports
have only to withstand a nominal burden of five per cent.
If we include Hong-kong, which is a depét for many of the
surrounding countries as well, we bring up the total figures
of British imports to China to 49,000,000, or about one-half
of our total exports to the thinly-populated South-American
Continent. The great drawbacks, which prevent our trade
with China attaining to dimensions on a par with the wealth,
civilization, and numbers of its people, are the rudimentary
condition of its roads, the discouragement of mining, and
the vexatious multiplicity of the inland tax-stations,

These obstacles present themselves in the order named,
the first of all being the difficulty of inter-communication.
By the compulsory opening to steamers of the Great River
as far as Hankow, 600 miles only, the trade of Shanghai
was quickly quadrupled. Later on 400 miles additional, up
to Ichang, situated at the foot of the first rapid, were re-
luctantly conceded as part of the indemnity for the murder
of Margary in Yunnan, and another great bound took place.
But in Ichang we have only a poor mountain town, which
derives its importance from being the transhipping point for
the rich province of Szechuan, lying in the far west above
and beyond the rapids. To reach this, the native merchants
have to run the gauntlet of the rapids in frail native craft ;
the still worse gauntlet of a string of Custom-houses has
been partially removed by the opening of Chung-king as a
treaty port, but goods are still delayed two or three days
for examination at Kwei-kwan. The opening of Chung-
king, the commercial metropolis of Szechuan, as a treaty
port, should in time, in the words of a late Consular
Resident there, create another Shanghai in Western China ;
such are the ascertained riches of the Great West, of which
Chung-king is the key. But Chung-king is nothing without

Steam Communication 5

steam communication ; now at last, after over twenty years,
wrangling with Chinese officialdom, this is about to be estab-
lished. The difficulty lay with the provincial authorities,
whose interests were menaced by the change ; but a vigorous.
minister had only to press the matter home sufficiently upon
the Central Government at Pekin, for them to give way,
and in their turn plead force majeure to the provincials, who
then, as in so many other previous instances, promptly,
though sulkily acquiesced. The mandarins pleaded for
delay, on the ground of the junkmen who would be thrown
out of work; but this argument, though good in itself, is
dispelled by the experience of other ports opened to steam,
where the trade on the subsidiary channels of communication
has been so stimulated that more natives are employed in
the carrying trade than ever before. Another argument
gravely adduced in an official despatch to Sir John Walsham
was, that the monkeys in the Gorges would throw down
rocks on the passing steamers, and that then the poor Chinese
Government would be held responsible !

But in bringing about a radical change like that of steam
communication, and at the same time to promote the
prosperity of all classes, including those whose vested in-
terests are threatened, what is wanted is permission to the
people to avail themselves freely of their almost untouched
mineral wealth. It is the studious discouragement of mining
enterprise on the part of the authorities that forms the second
of the three obstacles to increased trade, which I have just
enumerated. It is nothing less than a scandal, that at
Ichang, 1000 miles inland, steamers should be driven to
burn imported Japanese coal, when Ichang, as Richthofen
points out, is situated on the borders of one of the richest
coal-fields in the world. The vast carboniferous deposits
that underlie the Red Basin of Szechuan, and the out-

6 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

croppings of which in the gorges of the Yang-tse and its
affluents, arrest the attention of all travellers in that region
remain a sealed book, When these mines are allowed to be
worked by Western appliances, and the coal, the iron, the
precious metals, and the petroleum-springs are properly
developed, not only will there be such a trade, that junks
and steamers together will hardly be able to carry it all;
even if the junks be displaced iz ‘oto, the few thousand
trackers thrown out of employment will not suffice to supply
one-tenth of the labour required ; and in lieu of the miserable
pittance they now receive for their arduous and dangerous
labours, they will then earn sufficient wages to enable them to
live in comparative comfort.

The Chinese Government has a traditional mistrust of all
enterprises carried out upon private initiative. There is
one steamer company in China, the “ China Merchants’
Steam Navigation Company,” and one coal-mining company,
that of Kaiping, to the north of Tientsin, whose operations
are large and successful, but they are both worked under
Government auspices, the managers being high mandarins,
although both employ a large number of European assist-
ants. The capital of both companies is largely recruited
from the trading classes, and these non-official shareholders
have no voice in the management. So great is the mistrust
engendered by the official management of mercantile enter-
prises, that the trading class, so far, have utterly failed to
respond to the recent Government appeals for capital for the
proposed railway loans, and it is now clear that the authorities
will fail in their endeavour to construct railroads, indepen-
dently of the foreign aid which has been so lavishly tendered
to them by the agents of competing European syndicates,

However, the fact remains, and has to be counted with,
that the high Chinese officials are hostile to all trading

Statistics of Trade 7

enterprises in the country, which they do not themselves
inaugurate and control. If they ‘ultimately succeed in
constructing railroads, and working mines on their own system,
employing a few foreigners in subordinate positions only, the
expected field for foreign enterprise in China will be
materially reduced, and the process of centralization which
has been steadily going on of late years will lead to an
organic change in the government of the Empire, the result
of which it is impossible to foresee. If no disturbing
revolution intervene, the prosperity of the people must
slowly increase as the latent resources of the country, and
consequently their consuming powers, are developed. A
few figures, extracted from the foreign Customs return, will
show what the present consumption is, how stationary our
imports remain, and especially how trifling is now the import
of European goods into Western China.

The following table shows the annual value of the foreign
trade of all China; the tax upon which, levied by the
Imperial Maritime Customs, amounted in 1886 to 15,000,000
Haikwan taels (or, at 5s. per tael, 43,750,000), and in 1897
to 22,742,000 Haikwan taels (or, taking the rate of exchange
at 2s, 9@. per tael, 43,032,000), This is exclusive of the
internal taxation, which may be estimated at fully as much

again. 1897.
(Exchange fallen
f 1879. 1886. to 2s. gd. per tael.

I t
eee oe | see 20,557,000 421,870,000 £25,500,000
ll
es i 18,070,000 19,300,000 25,000,000
£38; 627,000 441, 170,000 £50, 500,000
1879. 1886. 1897.

ee s+ £5,083,000 45,508,000 453735,000

Exports to }

Great Britain 6,531,000 4,936,000 1,726,000

411,614,000 £10,444,000 47,461,000

8 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

These figures are only approximate. A large portion
of the trade with Great Britain passes through Hong-kong,
but in the imports thence into China proper the country
of origin cannot be distinguished. The apparent falling
off in values is due to the fall in silver—nearly fifty per
cent.; if quantities be taken, then our export trade to China
would show a steady and substantial increase, athough not
Proportional to that of rival nations. The import trade
of Great Britain from China is affected by the decline in the
use of Chinese tea, and by the fact that London no longer,
as formerly, forms a depét for Continental Europe.

The following is a complete list of the exports from

1897. 1896.
Articles.
Quantity.} Value. -| Quantity.| Value.
Bristl Lb So -
ristles ae Sp. sas 823,866 18,611 766,93. 21,516
Feathers, duck and I fowl « ” a5 o0' 800 2,468 forage 2,306
Fungus ‘isd 55 aes 538,266 15,202 502,667 15,764
Hemp e i s+ | 1,805,533 153445 | 1,726,133 15,104
Hides, cow ‘and buffalo wee 3 eae 284,933 3,226 485,867 5,769
Medicines ... «| Value .. ais 95,008 a 84,650
Musk ie a8 see [ose «Sex 45383 92,126 49457 89,707
Lead... aes aa aii oa s+ | 2,095,333 11,180 eds
ait et wes = ees Ay ++ | 1,805,533 31,560 | 632,667 11,071
ium—
Ssti-ch‘uan nee | gy ne 1,052,066 | 3279753 | 936,667 234,155
Yiinnan ... eas) ai a ob 172,533 54,093 138,267 41,507
Dross_... vie oe ” os 22,000 2,797 14,533 2,145
ef eate aoe oa a5 6 or 889,733 17,123 600, 533 11,261
ae wen sg 4 ss 2, 6: 6
Sil, duke ’ 50,266 9743 51,867 2,99
ellow ... ales on en ae 607,800 1555272 436,133 102,503
White as ees “ ‘5 sea 17,066 4,629 se pe
. ild aes nee ais nf ove 124,133 12,205 755733 7,494
ocoons ... a oe a5 iia 5,433 225 37,067 1,666
” wild ... ae Me Sse 10,023 192 41,067 1,526
Refuse... ais a es 77,300 2,311 106,667 3,601
Cocoons, refuse .. igs » eee 703,663 20,942 | 1,033,067 32,314
epelier il nits ie ” oes 217,721 1,452 ane ane
Sugar, prowa rs a Te 86,266 307 | 1,275,600 41784
Wool, ain z ooo oon ” +++ | 2,300,800 “20/515 1,279,333 133,216
Other exports one pa Value 1. 18:08 ee sie eae
Total eon 1,069,017 ai 870,538

The Trade of Szechuan 9

Chung-king in the year 1897, viz. of those that paid duty at
the Imperial Maritime Customs, compared with those of the
previous year: Chung-king being the commercial metropolis
of West China, to which the Yang-tse Gorges form the
approach.

The above figures provide a fair resumé of the trade of
Szechuan as it stands to-day, but they are incomplete, as it
is optional to the Chinese merchant to pass his goods either
through the “foreign” or through the native Customs ; he,
of course, selects the cheaper “ squeeze” of the two, accord-
ing to the quality and destination of his shipment. When
the day comes in which all merchandise will be carried by
steam, then all will come under the control of the Maritime
Customs ; but it is to be hoped that in that good time the
folly of multiplying Custom-houses all over the interior
country will be so universally apparent as to have led to
their abolition at the inland ports. Increased “ Maritime”
dues at the coast ports might be conceded as an equivalent,
and the vexatious delays and restrictions of the present
medizval system of collecting the necessary revenue be
removed. _

Chung-king was formally opened to foreign trade in 1890,
and, during the seven years since elapsed, the Imperial
Maritime Customs’ receipts have advanced in a way most
satisfactory to the Central, although less so to the Provincial,
Government. The figures for 1897 were as under :—

Total customs revenue Customs revenue on Proportion of Sze-

at thirty-two treaty Szechuan trade col- chuan collections to
ports. Haikwan lected at Chung- whole of China, 3°6
taels 22,742,000, king and Ichang. per cent.

Haikwan taels

813,000.

Import of cotton piece Import of cotton piece Proportion of Sze-
goods into whole of | goods into Chung- chuan import, 3°8
China: 15,156,074 king: 582,679 pieces per cent.
pieces = £ 5,723,000, = £241,916.

10 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Import of cotton yarn Import of cotton yarn 10°87 per cent.
into whole of China into Chung-king
(chiefly Indian): (chiefly Indian) :

523,000 bales= 56,878 bales =
45,230,000, £568,780.

Woollen piece goods Woollen piece goods 6°2 per cent.
imported into all imported into

China : 443,894 Chung-king: 27,558
pieces = £665,841. pieces = £41,382.

In 1886 the import of foreign piece goods which passed
the Imperial Maritime Customs at that port for transhipment
by junk to Chung-king was—(exchange at that date five
shillings per Haikwan tael) :

Cotton piece goods, value £158,000. Woollen piece
goods, £110,000.

Thus the opening of Chung-king as a treaty port has
doubled the gwantity of cotton piece goods imported.
Woollens have fallen off, the cheaper wadded clothes, of
silk with cotton-wool lining, taking their place. Yarn was
imported only in small quantities, paying likin, thirteen
years ago.

Of exports from Western China not shown in the above
figures, salt from the brine-wells in Szechuan is the principal,
to the amount of several thousand tons annually, which
further increases the excess in exports. As it is probable
that in the long-run the trade balances itself, I presume the
balance is effected by the import of yarns and shirtings.
produced by the Hankow cotton mills, owned by the
Viceroy of Hukwang, which do not pass through the
“foreign” Customs, by the import of native hand-woven
cotton cloths from Shaze in Hupeh and by the import of
raw cotton from the same province. Heavy junk-loads of
this staple are despatched day after day from Hankow, after
the conclusion of the cotton harvest in November, in junks

Consumption of Piece Goods Il

direct to Chung-king, which escape all notice by the foreign
Customs.

A peculiar feature in the economy of Western China, and
one of great promise to manufacturing interests, once the
disabilities that now hamper all intercourse are lightened, is
the fact that the country is unsuited to the cultivation of
cotton. Hence, with the exception of silk, which is
abundantly worn by all classes, the clothing of these vast
districts has all to be imported. Yunnan is scantily supplied
from Burmah, Kweichow from the two Kwang provinces,
and Szechuan from Hupeh (Hankow) and Kiang-su
(Shanghai). Raw cotton, as packed by the Chinese, is
an exceedingly bulky article; but it is light, easy to handle,
and less liable to total loss in the rapids than are heavy
bale goods, What the figures of this cotton import attain
to, it is impossible to ascertain; but every traveller on the
Upper Yang-tse in the winter season is struck by the endless
procession of cotton-laden junks struggling up the successive
rapids.

It is interesting to compare the proportion of foreign
piece goods consumed west of Ichang, with the total import
into Shanghai, and also with the relative populations served.
Mr. Popoff, late Secretary of the Russian Legation at
Peking, has published an estimate of the population of
China, based on the recent provincial censuses, which are
believed to be fairly accurate, and which I here reproduce,

PROVINCES SUPPLIED FROM SHANGHAI,

1. Eastern and Central :— Pop.
Chili a a w+ 17,937,000
Shantung ... ad + 36,546,000
Shansi — sen 10,791,000
Shensi si és, 1. 8,432,000

Kansu ian ae ae 5,411,000

12 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Honan jae ne ws 22,117,000
Hupeh wee ron ses 33,600,000
Hunan ais ats ..+ 21,005,000
Kiangsi 88 wee 24,541,000
Ganhui or nae «ss 20,597,000
Chekiang ... ees ve 11,685,000
Kiangsu... tas sss 21,260,000
————— 233,922,000
2. Western :—
Szechuan ... ate . 71,074,000
Yunnan... Bad w 11,721,000
Kweichow sce is 7,609,000
se 90,464,000
Leaving (Provinces supplied from Hong-kong) :—
Kwangtung ioe wes 29,740,000
Kwangsi... a see) 121,000
Fukien ink wae wes 25,800,000
—--—— 60,661,000
Total population of the eighteen provinces ... 385,047,000

This calculation, which may be taken as approximately
correct, shows that thirty per cent. of the population of
China, and that the richest and the most in want of foreign
piece goods, absorb barely five per cent. of the total imports.

We now come to the third obstacle to the actual increase
in our trade, viz. the multiplicity of inland tax-stations.

Up to Chung-king, 1500 miles from Shanghai, and the
highest treaty port open on the Yang-tse river, the one
import duty clears the goods without further charge.
Thence onwards to the great consuming districts in the
interior of the province, and in the two large neighbouring
provinces of Yunnan and Kweichow, and in Tibet, dozens
of likin-stations line all the main roads, both by land and
water, and have to be visited.

It is true that, under the transit-pass system, an
additional payment amounting to half the import duty clears

Discouragements to Trade ee

the goods from further tax; but the repeated stoppages of
the junks and the vexatious examination of the goods
(mitigated to some extent by ample douceurs to the
examining officers) have to be endured. One article in
demand by the native photographers, who are found in all
the chief towns of Szechuan, viz. “ dry plates,” has been so
repeatedly ruined by these examinations, that they are now
all smuggled through at aheavy cost. As the real remedy—
the total abolition of all inland taxation—although quite
practical with good management, is not likely to be applied,
the only plan for the present is for “ foreigners” to follow
their goods in person, and lodge complaints with their
Consuls for undue detention until the inland officials give up
the harassing of transit-pass goods as a game no longer
worth the candle.

To sum up :—In the preceding pages I have endeavoured
to show that our trade with China, and especially with the
West, is not one-tenth of what, seeing (1) the size of the
field, (2): the immense natural resources of the country,
(3) the industry of the people, it ought, under proper
conditions, to be. The absence of such proper conditions
I have shown to be not irremediable, but due to the
following artificial obstacles, viz :—

I, The rudimentary condition of communications.

II. The discouragement of mining and other enterprises,
which might afford employment to the population, displaced
by the introduction of improved methods.

III. The multiplicity of inland tax-stations.

It is to the interest of all concerned in the improvement of
our trade, and the prosperity of our manufactures, to do their
utmost to bring about an alleviation of these conditions.
Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself as in
Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we

14 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

must admit the fact that past progress has been due to
pressure, and that this pressure must be kept up. Our
Chambers of Commerce should enlighten and rouse the
public, and induce our Government to imitate the Russians
in establishing a special ministry for East-Asian affairs,
whose duty it should be to watch British interests in the
Far East, fromm Siam to China and Japan, and take care that
our rights and privileges are encroached upon neither by the
natives themselves, nor by our European rivals in these
countries. Our Foreign Office, too much engaged in other
quarters, has, of late years, notoriously failed to pay due
attention to the Far East; hence the crying need of a
special “‘ Far East” department.

The Chinese officials caz be urged, and should be made,
loyally to carry out the obligations to promote trade, which
are implied in our various treaties, and the Central Govern-
ment should be assured of our moral and material support
in resisting the preferential demands of our European
rivals ;* but to do this requires an energy that will persevere
in the face of the disheartening effects of perpetual procras-
tination, an art in which the Chinese are admittedly Past
Masters—without impatience and without rest—“ ohne Hast,
ohne Rast.”

* Tt does not appear to be generally known that France and Russia
have forced the Chinese Government to admit goods from their re-
spective frontiers upon payment of two-thirds only of the treaty tariff,
thus handicapping British goods, ocean borne, which have to pay the
full duty.

(ae.

CHAPTER II.
SHANGHAI TO ICHANG.

Shanghai to Ichang—Hankow—A Yang-tse boat—Shasze—The
plains of Hupeh—A Szechuan river-boat—Flooded districts—
Approach to the Hills—Ichang.

From Shanghai to Hankow the voyage is performed by one
of the many magnificent steamers of American type which,
since the opening of the Yang-tse river to foreign trade in
1860, ply daily between those two ports, a distance of 600
miles. It was on the eve of the Chinese New Year, in the
middle of February, when at midnight I rode down in a
jinricshaw to Jardine’s wharf, and took up my quarters on
board the Zai-Wo moored alongside, preparatory to start-
ing up-stream the following morning at daylight. But
sleep was no easy matter; thousands of fire-crackers were
being let off in the streets, alive with countless Chinese
lanterns, and the din was deafening. Native passengers
were crowding on board, and the coolies carrying their
luggage were wrangling over their pay. I at length got to
sleep in the early hours of the morning, and woke up to
find that we were in the sea of muddy water which forms
the lower reaches of the Great River. A thin line of
brown, a shade deeper than that of the water, barely visible
on the starboard hand, indicated the left bank, while in
the opposite direction the muddy waste extended to the
horizon. Nota stray junk moving enlivened the desolate

16 Through the Yang-tse Gorges ey
prospect ; all were in port, keeping the New Year's holidays,
and a dull leaden sky completed the gloom of the chill
February morning.

Little of interest occurred on the voyage up as we steamed
on through four days and nights, picking up and setting
down the rare passengers moving at this festal time. We
spent an hour upon a sandbank above Kiukiang, ploughing
up the muddy bottom in our endeavours to get afloat again.
Off Nganking, the capital city of the province of Nganhui,
we had the misfortune to collide with a crockery-laden junk,

- the captain of which quickly ran his vessel ashore, and so
saved her from sinking. She was one of the few junks that
set sail in the early days of the New Year in order to take
advantage of the holidays, during which the Likin or tax
stations are closed, and so the junks pass free. Our worthy
skipper anchored at once, and put off in a boat to ascertain
the extent of the damage. The bales of blue and white
rice-bowls of which the cargo consisted, were quickly un-
laden and placed on the bank, the hole was patched up and
the cargo restored, and the junk taken in tow to Kiukiang,
her owner’s home. Here the damage was appraised and
paid for, and the incident ended. But I could not avoid
being impressed with the practical method adopted by the
Chinese in the construction of their flimsy-looking junks—in
building the hull in compartments, a consequence of which
is that, although accidents on the river are frequent, a total
loss rarely occurs.

The winter sun, always warm in these latitudes, was
shining brightly as we moored alongside the great quay, or
“ Bund,” which extends along the river-front of the British
settlement at Hankow. As at Shanghai, a roadway, lined
with trees, some eighty yards wide, separates the palatial
residences of the merchants from the steep river-shore,

The Hankow Bund 17

which is faced by a magnificent stone embankment. Unlike
Shanghai, however, except during the short tea season in
early summer, no carriages and but a few pedestrians are
seen, and the concession has the lifeless depressing aspect
of a seaside watering-place in the off season. The busy
crowded quarter in which the Chinese live is entirely cut
off from the concession, and the Chinese only resort thither
when they have actual business to transact with the few
residents who remain in Hankow throughout the winter.
After landing from the steamer and ascending the long and
wide stone stairs that lead up from the river, I traversed the
deserted bund, and making my way to the dirty crowded
Chinese city, set about making the necessary preparations
for my four months’ voyage into the interior. At length,
on Saturday, the 24th February, everything was ready for
the start, and from this time on, my daily journal, written
up each night on the road, tells exactly what I saw, and will
not fail, I trust, to convey to the reader, beyond a descrip-
tion of the country traversed, some hitherto undescribed
phases of the interesting stationary civilization with which
I came in contact.

Sunday, February 25th.—Two boats having been engaged,
and all my things sent on board, I hoped, after the endless
delays and postponements which had kept me now a week
in Hankow, that dinner-time would see me well under way
on the mysterious river. To my disgust, my companion, a
Shansi merchant, was not forthcoming at the appointed time,
but later in the day informed me we should positively start
on the following day at ten.o’clock. Iavailed myself of the
hospitality of my kind friend, the manager of the Hong-kong
and Shanghai Bank, for another night, and on Monday Mr.
Chang duly appeared, and we set off together in a sampan
from the steps of the bund, a descent of fifty feet from the

Cc

18 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

river’s summer level, to join the boats which were to convey
us to Shasze, the port at which we are to exchange into
the larger boat which takes us up the rapids. The native
passenger boats, which ply to Shasze and elsewhere, were
moored some distance up the Han river, an affluent which
falls into the Yang-tse on its left or western bank, about a
mile above the concession limits. Here, after rowing up
against the stream past endless tiers of up-country junks,
we at length found our boat, which was destined to be my
residence during the next fourteen days. This boat had
been engaged nearly a week before, but nothing would
induce the owner to bring her down-stream, and let me
embark in comfort off my host’s door. The real reason of
his refusal I found to be that each line of boats has its
special mooring-ground. The Han river, here about 200
yards wide, and running with a very deep rapid current, was
jammed with thousands of junks, large and small, waiting
for business. I now thought we were at last off; not at all,
my companion had still some business to transact, and the
cook was still ashore, I let him go, and waited patiently
in the confined cabin six long hours, when, finding it would
be impossible to make a start that night, I took a sampan
across to the Hanyang shore, and, despite the frightful
mud of a Chinese street after a fortnight’s snow and rain,
stretched my weary legs by a climb up the lofty hill, from
which one enjoys a famous and splendid view over the
united cities of Wuchang, Hanyang, and Hankow, the
scattered mountains, and the vast swampy plain. Returning
on board to a cold dinner, I slept as well as I could amidst
the unpleasant surroundings of a Chinese junk-fleet at New
Year time.

Tuesday, February 27th, at six a.m., found us rowing down
the swift current of the Han; when reaching the VYang-tse

Tracking up an A ffiuent 19

we turned to the right and made our way painfully up stream,
past Hanyang to Siao-ho-kou, thirty li (about seven miles
distant), the spot where we quit the main river to ascend
another affluent. This thirty li occupied six hours’ poling
and rowing, the almost continuous line of Hunan timber
and bamboo rafts in process of unloading along the banks
compelling us to proceed against the full force of the
current, which from half a knot, its speed on the day of my
arrival in Hankow (14th February), had now increased to
about two knots, the river having risen two feet in the
interval above its then level, which was the lowest of this
winter, and some fifty feet below the height attained in the
summer freshets. Little is to be seen in this reach, nearly
a mile in width, beyond the outlines of a few distant hills
rising above the low horizon, the near view of the country
being totally impeded by the lofty mudbanks, in many
places absolutely perpendicular, by which the river is now
enclosed. The stream we enter at Siao-ho-kou drains one
of the numerous chains of shallow lakes which line the
central and lower stretches of the Yang-tse’s course. These,
in summer, form one vast expanse with the river itself—but
in winter are separated from it by wide stretches of alluvial
land on which is grown winter wheat—and are connected
with the river by rapid winding streams, through which the
mud-laden Yang-tse flows up in summer, and down which
the pellucid lake water, after having deposited its silt, drains
off in winter. Into one of these affluents, or as they are
called by our own navigators, creeks, we now entered. It
was of an even width of about eighty yards, and at the time
ten feet deep, and running with a current of ‘five to six
knots, against which we were painfully towed, making four
miles in as many hours, when, heavy rain coming on, we
hitched up to the bank for the night, close to an isolated

20 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

rocky point round which the creek rushes, called Hwang
Sheng Kang; having accomplished in this our first day’s
journey the very respectable distance of eleven miles. This
rocky point is remarkable in standing out isolated from the
plain at not more than ten feet above its general level, and
large enough only to afford room for a small temple and
picturesque two-storied Ting-tze or pavilion, with a light-
house in the shape of a square paper lantern: a uscful
beacon to the belated mariner when the waters are out and
the floods extend to the horizon.

Wednesday, February 28th.—At daylight a heavy snow-
storm rendered progress impossible; the whole country was
covered three inches deep, and I lay confined in the dark,
owing to all the mats fore and aft covering the boat. At
length, at ten o’clock, the weather cleared, although the
clouds hung ominously low on the neighbouring hills. The
stream here widens out to about 200 yards, and the current
slackened to about two knots, rendering progress by coolies
tracking along shore comparatively easy as compared with
yesterday. Notwithstanding we only made twenty li, say
six miles, in four hours; after which we again came to a
halt at a place called P’u-tan, sixty li from Hankow, say
seventeen miles. This place tumed out to be the home of
our “Lao-ta” (old-great) or captain, and this necessitated
his spending the night ashore. We did not, however, lose
much, as, after sundry hailstorms, heavy rain set in at four
o’clock, and continued throughout the night. The country
through which we passed to-day forms in summer the bed of
a vast lake, out of which rise, like islands, isolated barren
sandstone hills of from ten to 200 feet high. On one of
the former is built the village of P’ut-an, at the height of the
summer floods. It has an untidy, dilapidated look, like a
place that has recently been under water, the stone bunding

The Hupeh Lagoons 21

with which the banks of the hillock are partially protected
being, like everything else in the land, in a ruinous, tumble-
down condition.

During the next ten days we tracked, poled and sailed
through a dreary country of alternate shallow lakes and
embanked watercourses, the home of immense flocks of
wild-fowl which are snared by the amphibious inhabitants
of this wild region, the greater part of which formed a vast
lake in the preceding summer, owing to a break in the
embankment. The lakes or lagoons are filled with aquatic
plants, chiefly “‘ Kao-tsao,” which shelter innumerable fish
who yield a fine prey to the many devices of the ingenious
Chinese fishermen. In one lake were crowds of small
boats fishing in company: after clustering together they
suddenly separate, forming a large circle; then, hammering
with all their might with two flat bamboos on the forward
deck, they all draw in suddenly to the centre, driving the
fish before them. The noise was great, and heard a long
way off before the boats came in sight. Great expanses of
muddy land, fertilized by a fresh layer deposited in last
year’s floods, had been sown with wheat, now just sprouting,
to be reaped in May. We fared poorly, there being no
good food purchasable at the miserable collections of reed-
and-plaster huts, termed villages, alongside which we
usually tied up for the night. We once secured a fine carp,
five pounds for fivepence, upon which I hoped to make a
good dinner; but the cook, whom I remonstrated with for
not killing the fish before scaling him, let the poor thing
jump overboard with half his scales scraped off him. The
fact that his cruelty reacted upon the perpetrator afforded
me little compensation.

The reeds which cover the marshy banks and extensive
flats bordering the Great River, from its mouth to where it

a3 Through the Vang-tse Gorges.

issues from the mountains below Ichang, are a notable
product of, and peculiar to, the Yang-tse valley. They
grow to a height of fifteen to twenty feet, and form the
building material and fuel of a vast population. At some
villages were four-wheeled wooden trucks, the primeval
model of the modern railway truck whose method of con-
struction they closely foreshadow, the wheels solid and
below and within the frame of the truck, the axles revolving
with the wheels. In the lower parts of the plain sledges are
employed to convey produce over the marshy ground, much
as the Samoyedes drive their sleighs across the Siberian
tundras in the short Arctic summer. All alike are loaded
with reed bundles, some are pushed by men, others drawn
by the patient water-buffalo across the flats. Arrived at the
water’s edge, these reeds are placed upon pairs of flat-boats,
of which we meet many descending the stream, looking like
floating haystacks. All one morning immense flocks of
wild-fowl passed overhead on their flight to the north ; this
being the first fine day, they seem to be all starting for their

summer quarters. They rose from the lake on our right,
and in a minute were out of sight. i ial be

In Shansi there is a city called Yen men an (Wild-
goose Gate Barrier), so named because the wild-fowl pass
over and through the town in which this gate is situated,
and when the gates are shut the wild geese settle and wait
for them to be opened before passing. This occurs both on
their northward flight in the spring and on their southward
flight in the autumn. For this reason, and their supposed
conjugal fidelity, the Chinese will not kill or eat them, their
intelligence being almost human. This story, my companion,
a native of the place, insists upon being literally true. He
is confirmed by our cook, also a Shansi man, who neglects
his cooking to reassure my unbelief.

A Shanst Merchants Autobiography 23

On the banks of the night mooring-stations the whole
extent of water frontage is occupied by ornamental cabinets
@aisance placed by the truly scientific agriculturists of this
country, to allure all possible contributions from the
travelling public, and prevent the pollution of the streams—
a defect characteristic of Europe from which China is
happily free.

I passed much time on this dull journey in conversation
with my Shansi friend, who told me his history. He had
been ten years employed by a large Shansi firm in different
parts of the empire and latterly in Western Szechuan, on the
Thibetan border, buying musk which is his speciality ; until
two years ago he left for home, the possessor of. 500 taels,
to bury his family, nine persons including his wife, the whole
of whom had perished in the famine of 1877-8. He then
married another wife, whom he left at home, and to whom
he allows ten taels a year (£2 105.) for food. She can
exist a year on a picul of wheat (133 lbs.), which here costs
one tael (5s.), while during the famine the price in Shansi
was 30 taels (£7 10s.); and yet nothing but forcible per-
suasion will induce the governors of this misguided country
to allow railways to be built for them. Wheat and millet,
eaten mostly in the form of dumplings, but without any fat
in their composition, form the staple diet in the north and
west, rice being there the luxury of the rich. These our
Shansi cook is, of course, an adept in; but I find them rather
heavy and sour to the taste, the flour being coarse and of
a dirty colour.

At last, on the eleventh day out from Hankow, the second
stage of my journey came to an end as the town of Shasze
loomed up on the high embankment between us and the Great
River. We passed a handsome and extensive building, the
Shansi guild-house, and the town with its commanding pagoda,

24 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

appeared to rise up before us. We are approaching Shasze
from behind, the front proper being to the Yang-tse, on
and in the rear of the embanking dyke on which the town
is erected. This dyke is twenty-five feet above the level
of the country, which is here all below the level of the Yang-
tse waters both in winter and summer. As in Hankow,
to which in its situation and in its trade Shasze is in many
respects analogous, the business and bustle is along the
river-front, and the country-side is dull and lifeless, The
total distance from Hankow by this inland, partly canalized,
route is 220 miles, the distance by the river being 300. This
channel is called by the Chinese the “ Pien H6,” or accommo-
dation river, the common term for a short cut on water.
We moored alongside the bank just below a stone bridge,
too yards long, but with only two small arches in it, being
on the inside of the dyke slope, which was covered with
graves sheltered by a few fir-trees. I went for a short stroll,
but the mob was so troublesome that I could see nothing,
so returned to my boat, and shut myself up in the cabin (all
my people were ashore arranging for a boat to take us on
to Chung-king) ; but a rain of mud and stones, the latter
fortunately scarce in this alluvial plain, summoned me to
show myself. My people arrived at length, and expostulated
with the crowd, which, however, did not disperse till after
dark,

Sunday, March 11th.—“ Under Heaven”—i.e, “in all
the world,” by which is understood, the Empire of China—
Shasze is the Chen (trading-place), Hankow the Kou
(river’s mouth or port); and Shanghai the Hsien (district
city) par excellence. Shashe, or, as it is usually spelt, Sha sze,
means, literally translated, ‘ Sand-market,” which probably
designates the origin of the place. The “ Market on
the Sands” probably sprang up on one of the numerous

Description of Shasze 25

sandbanks which block the river-channel hereabouts, possibly
before the dyke was built; at this time it would exist in
winter only, and be built of reed huts, removable in the
summer floods, like many of the mushroom towns one now
meets with, adjacent to the junk anchorages. Shasze is
thus reputed the most important Chen or mart in the empire ;
Hankow, the most important Kow or mouth; and Shanghai,
the most important Hsien or district city. Of Fu, or
prefectural cities, the most celebrated “under Heaven” are
Su-chow and Hangchow (Chow meaning divisional city), of
which the old proverb says :—

“ Above is Heaven’s hall (Paradise),
Below are the cities of Su and Hang.”

At daylight set out to cross the dyke, on and behind
which the town is built, and up to which the canal by which
we came runs. Lying in the main river, and moored to
the opposite slope of the dyke, lay the Szechuan boat that
my man had hired to take us to Chung-king; the distance
across the dyke and through the town being about one
mile. I started thus early so as to avoid being mobbed
in the streets; these were in the abominably filthy con-
dition common to all Chinese cities. At length reached
the river-bank, down which I clambered a distance of
thirty feet, and entered the boat. Here I waited alone
from 7 a.m. till 1 p.m., for the men with our luggage.
The cook engaged for the trip did not turn up at all, and,
alone in the boat, I had to content myself with a meal
of dry bread, fourteen days old, the last remnant of my
Hankow provisions. Eventually, after dark, the cook
turned up, bringing with him an enormous sack, weighing
133 pounds, and containing dried shrimps, his little
private spec. for the Szechuan market. Not wishing to

26 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

raise more trouble and cause further delay, I forebore
to pitch the unsavoury package into the river, as I should
have liked to do, especially as he had not brought the
supplies, thus preventing our starting to-morrow at day-
light, as I had intended, and making the time occupied
in the transfer of boats extend to the third day—such is
travel in China.

Shasze has a noble stone embankment facing south and
south-west, built up in three tiers, each about twelve feet
high, with a fine promenade or bund on the top. This was
built up in the time of China’s greatness. Imagine the
Thames Embankment built on the banks of a river with
an annual instead of a daily tide, and that a degenerate
people have gradually encroached on the roadway until at
places a sedan-chair can hardly pass. In other parts, and
wherever there is room, beggar huts crowd the traffic to the
very edge of the bank, the ancient stone balustrade being
intact only in a very few isolated spots; over this edge all
the rubbish and filth of a big city are thrown until the stone
river-wall is hidden for more than half its extent, and over
these muck-heaps lead steep steps up from the tiers of junks,
about two thousand in number, and averaging thirty tons
burthen, which are moored the whole length of the city,
their bows to the bank. In these mud-heaps, which I
watched during the six weary hours I was waiting for my
luggage, a mixed filthy assemblage of half-starved dogs, pigs,
chiffonniers and chiffonneuses, these latter with the stumped
feet which in North China rich and poor alike affect, were
grubbing assiduously: a good specimen of China in her
decline, decay, and dirt. Fine stone stairs, crowned by
archways, are let into the embankment at regular intervals ;
but these are in such a filthy condition of black slime that
the steep paths in the muck-mounds are generally preferred.

King-chow and its Pagoda 27

Two miles inland, and above Shasze, lies the prefectural city
of King-chow, the seat of a Taotai, whose jurisdiction ex-
tends westwards as far as Ichang, a walled city of which
Shasze forms the trading suburb. This portion of the
Great River, called throughout its whole course by Westerns
the Yang-tse, is known locally as the King River or River
of King-chow. ‘The Yang-tse is known to the Chinese
indifferently as the Ta-kiang (Great River) or Chang-kiang
(Long River); if spoken of as the Vang-tse, it would be
totally unrecognizable to the natives of the land. But the
term Ta-kiang or Chang-kiang applies generally to the main
stream which takes its origin in the nine streams flowing
into the great Tung-ting Lake, whence the main volume of
its waters are derived. The river we are now on is an
affluent which flows into the Ta-kiang a few miles below
the Tung-ting Lake, and at right angles to its course, at a
village called King ho kou, literally, King River mouth—
the terms Ho and Kiang being analogous to the #Zuss and
Strom of the Germans. The name King-ho, however, only
applies to the distance’ covered by the stream as far as it
flows through the district of “ King” or King-chow; above
Ichang, where it passes out of the district of King, it is
commonly called the Chuan Ho or River of Szechuan.
The western extremity of Shasze is marked by a very
ancient pagoda of seven stories, up which I mounted,
followed by a noisy rabble, which the entrance fee of two
cash (half a farthing) did not deter. This pagoda adjoins
a monastery which is built behind and below the embank-
ment, so that the lowest story of the pagoda is entirely
hidden from the river. On the outside, each story contains
a recess on each side of its eight faces, and in each recess
is a stone Buddha. The interior is adorned with tiles, on
which are embossed Buddhas in various positions, some

28 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

squatting on the usual lotus-leaf, others with wings. The
entrance and window staircase, which is built in the wall,
is pitch dark, and so narrow that my shoulders touched both
walls as I cautiously groped my way up the broken steps.
From the four narrow windows in the topmost story I looked
north over the flooded country through which we had
just passed on our way from Hankow, south over the low
land and paddy fields on the opposite bank, east over the
picturesque (as, owing to the highly finished roofs, all Chinese
towns are from a distance) town of Shasze, and west over
the waste of sandbanks through which at this winter season
our to-morrow’s course lay. I had to share my binocular
with the rabble who accompanied me, and by whom I was
nearly suffocated in the descent.—A fine spring day, 60°
Fahrenheit in the cabin.

Monday, March 12th.—Owing to fresh delays on the part
of my Shansi friend, we did not get away till the afternoon,
and then again, at the last moment, we had to wait for my
special aversion, the cook, who had gone ashore again to
buy tea and probably to take a parting pipe in some opium
den, which he much preferred to the boat, in which he could
only enjoy his pipe in solitude ; and at length, at two p.m.,
with a fair wind, we got under way for Ichang. I had thus
ample time, while trying to control my impatience at the
needless delay, on this the third day at Shasze, to examine
the buildings on the embankment, the bulk of which were
of wood, from which the varnish had disappeared years
since, of two stories, and more or less upright, as befits
architecture founded on the tent of the Nomad. A few
brick houses, sadly in want of a fresh coating of whitewash,
were interspersed along the quay—analogous to the Café-
Restaurant of the French; one immediately opposite or
rather almost immediately overhead, rejoicing in the name

Riot and I[ncendiarism in 1898 29

of Ching-hsing-lo Cha-kwan, or the Star-view Tower Tea-
shop and Eating-house. From the rickety balustrade of its
low upper story some two dozen tipplers (of tea) gazed un-
interruptedly down on the barbarian hired boat on the
chance of the occupant exhibiting himself. The level of
this house, like that of most others, was, in view probably
of the summer floods overtopping the embankment, raised
some four feet above the quay, a flight of stone steps leading
up to its front door. Shasze, like Chung-king, has now
(1898) been converted by the energy of the Japanese from
a nominal to a real port of call for foreign steamers ; its
formal opening with Consuls and Customs took place last
year. In May of this year I happened to be passing down
river as the foreign settlement was burning, and assisted at
the rescue of Mr. Neumann, the Commissioner of the
Imperial Maritime Customs, and of the members of the
China Inland Mission, who had been driven out by the mob,
but had fortunately escaped in boats down river. In this,
the tenth riot in the Yang-tse Valley, the new Customs’
buildings, the Japanese Consulate, with the hulks of the
British Consul and of the China Merchants’ Steam Naviga-
tion Co., were totally destroyed. The cause of the riot was
attributed to the forcible removal of the junks from their old
anchorage off the foreign settlement, and to the transfer of
the Likin collection to the foreign Custom-house.

Our boat is quite different to anything I had expected.
Being built specially for the passage of the rapids, these
boats never descend below Shasze, where their freight and
passengers are exchanged into the Hunan boats in which
the traffic of the lower river is carried on. We have hired
a small boat as more expeditious ; it is called a Shen Potse,
or Wife of Shen (the town of Hunan where they are built) ;
is about forty feet long and three deep; carries down-stream

30 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

10,000 catties (six tons) and up-stream 4000 catties (two
and a half tons). It is now laden with about one ton of
luggage and stores, including several piculs of rice for the
crew, numbering six in all, besides five passengers who form
our party—making the draft just fourteen inches; but the
peculiarity of the boat is her lightness of build, resembling
in that respect the rapid boats of Japan: built of oak
planking, she has no timbers, no flooring, and, except
forward, no deck; but she is held together by five bulk-
heads which divide the central portion of the boat into four
holds, besides the tapering bow and stern, in the former of
which are the crew’s quarters and galley, and in the latter
reside our cook, with his portable earthenware stove, and
the helmsman. We in the centre are thus literally between
two fires, and get the benefit of the acrid wood-smoke from
whichever side the wind comes. The planking is one inch
only, and as the place of the flooring is taken by a sort of
light bamboo platform at the bottom of each hold, upon
which the cargo rests, the whole has great elasticity, and
three men run her along at three to four miles an hour
against a two-knot current with the greatest ease; besides,
she is unharmed by the continual bumping to which she is
subjected in her longshore voyaging. The forward deck is
a foot below the top of the bulkheads which enclose the
hold proper, and when the vessel is fully laden is almost
awash. Upon this, in reaches where tracking is imprac-
ticable, stand the crew, rowing with their faces to the bow,
Chinese fashion, when they use their long oars with a quick
jerky stroke, keeping strict time. The mast is about twenty
feet high, and on it is a small lug-sail, eight feet by fifteen,
only used when the wind is dead aft or on the quarter. The
only part covered is the central hold in which we live; the
covering is of arched bamboo matting, and being open at

Discipline of Szechuan Crew a1

either end, a fine draught is always blowing through, Having
heard much from the few Europeans who have travelled
there, of the superiority of the Szechuan people, as possessing
an approach to that manliness and good breeding which is
so markedly deficient in the Chinese with whom we come in
contact in the coast provinces, I examined our crew, the
first specimens of the “ Four Streams” (Szechuan meaning
Four Streams) province I had yet met, with some interest.
The Lao-ta and his brother, the former of whom steered
while the latter stood all day in the bow helping, with a
long iron-shod bamboo pole, were both tall, fair-skinned,
with pleasant voice and quiet manner when giving their
orders, which were obeyed by the crew with an alacrity and
silence that formed a great contrast to the frightful noise
and confusion with which any manceuvre is carried out in
China generally, on board boats or elsewhere. The men
jump out with the tow-line, and set off with a swinging step,
wade through the water and jump on board, and are off
again in a fresh spot with scarcely a sound. They tow from
dawn to dark, only coming on board for meals three times
a day, at which times, unless the wind is strong and fair, we
moor toa stake driven into the bank, the boat not being
weighted with anchor or chain. The most important part
of the gear are the tow-lines, and these are of plaited
bamboo, almost indestructible but for the jagged rocks
against which in the upper portion of the river’s course they
are gradually frayed out. We proceeded up the river,
which is here about three-quarters of a mile wide, past the
walled city of King-chow Fu, which, however, lies hidden
behind the embankment, until seven miles above Shasze, we
passed the Tai-ping ho (River of Peace), a “cut off”

quarter of a mile wide, with high artificial banks, about roo
miles long, through which the junks sail in summer to the

53 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Tung-ting Lake, avoiding the numerous bends and dangerous
sandbanks of the river proper. It is now a vast expanse of
sand, being entirely dry. At length, at seven p.m., after
making sixty li, say fifteen geographical miles, in five hours,
we moored for the night in a small channel between sand-
banks, at 4 place called Shih Tao Tse, or Stone Headland.
Tuesday, March 13th.—Off at six a.m., the trackers pro-
ceeding gaily along the top of the high bank, here almost
perpendicular. The river narrowed perceptibly after passing
Chiang-kow (River’s Mouth), a large straggling village on
the left bank, and with its clear shallow water forming a
marked contrast to the turbid whirling stream off Shasze.
The banks were covered with villages and fine trees, but
the plain behind is evidently still flooded in summer, the
great breach in the dyke, made by the gigantic flood of 1870,
being still unrepaired. At length, on reaching a small town
called Yung-tse, we caught the first sight of the Western
mountains, and were glad to realize that the dismal plain of
Hu-Peh was at last coming to an end. A vertical section
of the bank, here cut by the river, showed the first departure
from the alluvial mud through which the river, with the
exception of its passage through the range above Kiukiang,
makes its way from here down to the sea, a distance of 800
miles, This section showed a stratum of two feet of gravel
beneath six feet of mud. Above Yung-tse and below the
big island of Pa-chow, or, as Blakiston has named it, Spring
Island, I noticed a junk’s mast sticking out above the surface
in the middle of the stream, and I found that a large Hunan
junk, bound down from Ichang, and laden with Szechuan
produce, had run on to a bank here two days ago, and that.
two women of our Lao-ta’s family had been drowned in her.
The survivors were encamped in some of the wreckage
on the adjacent bank. It is very uncomfortable on board,

Entry into the “ Upper Vang-tse” Region 33

owing to the arched mats, which cover the central portion
of the boat, and which form a tunnel about twenty-two feet
long, under which we squat, producing a most cutting
draught, which I have not yet found means effectually to
exclude. Fortunately we are enjoying a continuance of
bright spring weather ; in fact, we have jumped suddenly from
winter into summer. Distance: 120 li—thirty geographical
miles; in all from Shasze, forty-five.

Wednesday, March 14th.—Off at six a.m., tracking in a
dead calm, with a bright warm sunshine. The river has at
length entirely lost its monotonous alluvial scenery, and the
reach we now passed through was bounded on either side
with low wooded hills, the gentle slopes to the water’s edge
at their feet being bright with the young spring wheat. The
reach had the appearance of a placid lake, from which the
warm sun was fast displacing the morning mist. We entered
a new climate—Shui-tu (Water-earth), as it is called by the
. Chinese—bright clear water and a rich red soil, the former,
for the first time after leaving Shanghai, sweet and drinkable
without filtering. This water comes mainly from Szechuan,
there being no affluent of importance between this and
Fu-chow, 400 miles higher up. A week back the field sown
with wheat showed nothing but the black alluvial soil ; here,
the plant is already six inches above the ground. In May,
when the river rises, the clear colour disappears and much
of this lower land is flooded, at times too early to allow of
the wheat harvest all being reaped. We passed the walled
district city of I-tu, situated upon a small affluent called the
Ching Chiang, or Clear River, which takes its rise in the
province of Hu-Nan to the south. The small river is a
true affluent, its waters flowing constantly into the Yang-tse,
although there was no preceptible current as we passed its

mouth. The high land of Ichang now appeared, but was
D

34 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

immediately hidden in a thunderstorm which here burst
upon us. The point we were now rounding, known as
Opossum Point, was covered with large loose boulders, the
first seen, a foretaste of the mountains to come. Below this
spot the points consisted of true sand; higher up the
boulders seemed to have consolidated into conglomerate or
pudding-stone, large masses of which, recently undermined
by the water, formed dangerous rocks for boats approach-
ing too near the bank. This conglomerate ledge, here
three feet thick, lies between two strata of hard sandstone.
Porpoises have kept us company all the way from Shasze,
but they do not ascend above Ichang, being arrested by
the first rapid, which is situated just below. There is little
or no current to-day, which explains the pellucidity of the
water ; in summer the water here varies from pea-soup to
chocolate. Brought up at Matung Chi (the “race” of Ma-
tung), having made 100 li, say twenty-five miles ; in all from
Shasze seventy miles.

Thursday, March 15th.—Off at daylight, in thick mist
increased by heavy dust-storm, which rendered the scenery
of the Tiger Teeth Gorge (Hu-ya hsia), through which we
now passed on our way to Ichang, quite invisible. This
gorge forms a break in the last of the cross ranges, athwart
which the Yang-tse breaks its way from the Szechuan plateau
to the great Hu-peh plain. This range, precipitous on its
north and west flank, rises to a height of 2600 feet on the
right bank,. one of its wall-sided peaks being crowned by an
apparently inaccessible Buddhist temple; and falls away to
about 300 feet where it crosses the river bed. The gorge is
600 to 800 yards wide, and about two miles long, and is
situated just ten miles below Ichang. The perpendicular
cliffs consist of a moderately coarse conglomerate like all the
country hereabout, and, as towing is impossible, our crew

Lhe Approach to Ichang oS

had to row with might and main to make any headway
against the two-knot current. In summer this gorge cannot
be attempted by junks except with a strong fair wind, which,
however, by a kind provision of nature, seems to blow here
pretty steadily all the year round from noon till sunset. As
it was calm when we passed, in the forenoon, we crept
through with no little difficulty, taking advantage of the
eddies, and brought to a standstill at every projecting point
of the rock, round which the current rushed vehemently.
Half-way between the gorge and Ichang stands a conspicuous
pagoda, enclosed in a walled garden planted with firs, the
whole in an unusually good state of preservation. Ichang
itself stands on a conglomerate cliff, rising only just above
the summer level, and overhanging a long, low, level sand-
spit, which in winter occupies nearly one-third of the river’s
width. Above this sandbank, and opposite the walled city,
lies moored a large fleet of Szechuan junks ; below the city
is the suburb which stretches along the river-bank, and here
is situated the temporary Customs’ pontoon moored in the
river channel. This suburb is nothing but a long narrow
Chinese street, ruinous at its lower end, straggling along’ the
bank, and composed of third-class native shops. Behind,
the country covered with grave-mounds as far as the eye can
reach, rises gradually into low brown gravel hills, inter-
mingled with boulders, and interspersed with a few small
vegetable gardens; in the bottoms are rows of terraced
paddy fields with roomy farmhouses of mud and wattle.
The view of the opposite bank facing Ichang is bold and
picturesque. Pyramid-shaped hills, with vertical cliffs along
the river front, 500 to 600 feet high, backed by ranges of
lofty mountains extending to the distant horizon, neat
villages and temples in groves of willow and bamboo, form
a delightful contrast to the squalid surroundings of the so-

36 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

called foreign settlement. Under the conglomerate ledges
of this, the left bank, which have been partially undermined
by the river, house innumerable beggars, whose fires, made
for preparing their evening rice, give a weird aspect to the
scene as viewed in the darkness from the sandbank beneath,
These snug nooks are not, however, free from danger, for
last winter a large slab of conglomerate toppled over, crush-
ing eight unfortunates beneath it.

I landed at four p.m., having made seventy li since day-
break, say eighteen miles, making. eighty-eight from Shasze
in three days—a fast boat passage.*

* August, 1898.—In 1893, when I made this journey, no steamer had
attempted to run between Hankow and Ichang in winter, and hence
Thad to spend seventeen days over a journey which is now accom-
plished in three days. In 1894 I put a small 200-ton twin-screw boat
on the line, “ Y-ling,” which ran regularly, winter and summer,
between the two ports until crowded out by the four large vessels of
American type which now control the trade.

Buddhist Temple on Summit of Conglomerate Pinnacle 1200 Feet high:
on Yang-tse River near Ichang (p. 34).

Junks in Ichang, with Masts erected preparatory to starting up Stream (p. 38).
[To face p. 36.

(oF)

CHAPTER III.

ICHANG AND ITS ENVIRONS,

The foreign community—Fishing with otters—* Feng Shui ”—The
conglomerate country—Cave of the Dragon King—Underground
lake—The “Dome”—Startling coug-d’ei/—Cloud-mist Moun-
tain—Chinese country house—Unexpected hospitality—Master
and servant—Auspicious site—Woodcutters—Steep climb—
Chinese ‘* Pahs ”—Taoist temple—Magnificent prospect—Ascent
of the Golden Peak—Chinese candles—A model hotel bill—
Plank bridge—Return to Ichang.

Tue foreign community of Ichang, in 1883, comprised a
Commissioner of Customs with an indoor assistant, who
combined medical with clerical duties, and two outdoor
examiners. These, with the missionaries—one Scotch
Presbyterian and his wife, and two Roman Catholics—then
formed the whole resident foreign population. The British
Consul appointed to the port resided, at the time of my
visit, at Hankow. I was much pleased at finding a medico
here, as, shortly before landing, while walking along the
river-bank, following the boat, a dog had rushed out of the
wheat, and bitten me in the calf of the leg through my
knickerbocker stocking, and I now let myself be thoroughly
cauterized. These dogs in China are the bane of one’s
existence; they have a mad antipathy to the barbarian,
that the longest acquaintance fails to modify; the scent,
appearance, or sound of his movements seems to infuriate

38 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

them to madness ; they rush out violently barking, and as a
rule stop short of biting, but to any one with sensitive nerves
there is no enjoyment in a walk outside the police-guarded
roads of the larger “settlements.” In the present instance
I was attacked by a dog who did not bark, and I hadno
stick ready for him; but such instances are rare.

Now, in 1898, the “foreign” community has increased
to twelve Europeans employed in the Imperial Maritime
Customs and thirty missionaries. The mercantile com-
munity is represented alone by the agents of the three
steamer companies running to Hankow, and by the agent
of the Chung-king Transport Company, Limited, all of
whom are Chinese. The trade of Ichang is almost ex-
clusively a transit trade. The town is situated in the
midst of a poor, mountainous country, whose people, unlike
the Szechuanese, have little money to spend upon foreign
luxuries. Ichang is the capital of a prefecture, the #z or
Prefect having numerous Asien, or districts, under his juris-
diction. The trade is a busy retail one, but there are no
large banks and wealthy wholesale merchants such as con-
gregate in the plain C/é, or mart, of Shasze, eighty miles
lower down.

friday, March 16th.—A calm, mild, sunny morning, the
sky still obscured by the otherwise invisible dust. These
dust-storms, which the nor’-west gales of winter bring from
the Mongolian deserts, carry the fine sand particles to an
incredible distance. On one occasion I was on board a
steamer in the Inland Sea of Japan, also in the month of
March, when, in midday, the captain was compelled to
bring the vessel to an anchor, as though in a North-Sea fog.
By means of these dust-storms, the plains of North-Western
China are supposed by geologists to have been raised, in the
course of ages, several hundred feet.

Fishing with Otters 39

After tiffin, I crossed the river with the Shuiwu Sze
(Commissioner of Customs) to inspect the otter fisheries
peculiar to this place. The opposite shore rises in pyra-
midal cliffs, separated by steep narrow valleys which just
admit of a landing on the rocks, the conglomerate formation
observed lower down shading off here into hard sandstone.
Attached to the rocky shore, ina small bay, sheltered some-
what from the violence of the current, the fishermen have
their otter station. From the bank, and overhanging the
water, depend small bamboos, like fishing-rods, to the
extremity of each of which is attached an otter by an
iron chain fixed to leather thongs crossed round the animal’s
chest and immediately behind the shoulders. Some of
the animals were playing in the water, swimming as far
as the length of their tether would allow them; others
had hung themselves across their bamboos, resting, doubled
up, and looking for all the world like otter skins hung
up to dry in the sun. When required for use, the fisher-
man, after casting his net, which is heavily loaded all round
the foot, draws up its long neck to the water level, and
inserts the otter through the central aperture; the otter
then routs out the fish from the muddy bottom and rocky
crevices, in which they hide. Fish, otter, and net are then
all hauled on board together, the otter is released and re-
warded, and a fresh cast is made.

We then ascended the steep valley, at the extremity of
which we had landed, and, walking to the other end,
mounted a steep narrow sandstone ridge with an equally
steep descent on each side. After so many years spent in
the plains, I was quite blown when we reached the hilltop,
but the ascent from thence up one of the lower peaks was
less steep. From the top was one of the finest and most
characteristic views I have ever enjoyed in China, unless

40 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

it be that from the Kushan monastery in Foochow, which
it in some respects resembles. On the right and at our
feet was the placid Vang-tse with the spreading city and
suburb of Ichang, its crenelated walls winding over the
undulating ground, which rises into a low range of hills
at its rear, 200 to 250 feet in height. Before us, to the
west and north, rise range upon range of steep mountains,
from 1000 to 6000 feet, amidst which the great river dis-
appears immediately beyond the city. On our left and
behind, to the south and east, rise cone upon cone of
pyramid-shaped hills, from 600 to 2500 feet high, through
which winds a clear stream, seven-eighths of its sandy bed
now dry.

Saturday, March 17th —I rose early—a lovely summer’s
morning—sat under an orange tree in the garden and read
the China Express of the 19th January, containing Hosie’s
reports of the trade of Chung-king, and of the feasibility of
running steamers through the gorges and rapids to connect
Ichang with that port, and so open up its trade by direct
communication. I also read Consul Spence’s report, and
that of the Commissioner, my host. These are all most
interesting, and I have now to go and form my own
opinion. After tiffin, walked to a temple built on the crest
of the hills in rear of the town, to which the Chinese are
erecting an addition in the shape of a pavilion of three
stories, to be seventy feet high, and to cost 30,000 taels
(45,000). This most conspicuous structure is to face and
to counteract the pyramidal hill on the opposite side of
the river, to the evil influence of which is due the ill-success
of the Ichang candidates at the triennial examinations. The
native trading community likewise suffers from its tendency
to throw the profits of the business into the hands of strangers
to the place. This unfortunate pyramid is situated due

Excursion to the White-cliff Mountains 4x

south of the town, and hence the Feng-shui is ruined, and
needs “ puhing,” or supplementing by artificial means. For
the sake of the foreigners about to settle in Ichang, let us
hope the new departure will prove ineffectual. This uni-
versal prevalence of the belief in Feng-shui or Geomancy
gives interest to every step in Chinese travel.

Upon one of the bright, cloudless, calm days, which
compose the monotonously beautiful Ichang winter, I once
set out with two chair-coolies carrying my chair—an open
wicker-work, or rather rattan, mountain sedan-chair—in
which were packed my bed and a change of clothes, also
one hired coolie carrying food. We crossed the Yang-tse,
and landed in a break in the cliffs, which line the right
bank, at the mouth of a narrow valley, which we ascended,
following the course of the stream which falls into the Great
River on its right bank, opposite the walled city of Ichang.

After walking six or seven miles on an almost level
plain, crossing and recrossing the clear stream continually
on stepping-stones, the valley, hitherto half a mile wide,
narrowed to a ravine, on the left being the steep precipices
of the “ Pai ai Shan” (White-cliff Mountains), and on the
right the conical, or rather pyramidal, hills, which are the
characteristic of Ichang scenery. The latter are limestone,
the former conglomerate, their varied outlines, the result of
erosion, dependent upon the toughness of the material.

We then left the narrow patches of beans and wheat,
and the pine woods and bamboo groves sloping down the
talus, and entered upon a ravine choked with conglomerate
blocks, that have tumbled down from the overhanging peaks
(1500 feet high), until we reached a side valley on the right,
bounded by precipices on both sides, with the smallest
patches of cultivation here and there in apparently

42 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

inaccessible spots; our path led along a ledge about half-
way up, with the dry river-bed of smooth pebbles below, a
desolate and romantic scene. My followers having lagged
behind, I wandered on, wondering when I should come to
the rock temple, in which I intended to pass the night, the
valley getting even more desolate as I advanced, as if I were
coming to the end of all things. The sun had already set
behind the mountains on my left, but the tops of those on
my right were still brilliantly illuminated. Suddenly, a
sharp turn discloses another steep valley, ending in a
wall of conglomerate, below which is a fine wood of ever-
green trees. The narrow path winds round and leads to
the wood, through which ascends a fine stone staircase,
announcing the approach to a temple. At length, a deep
wide cave, which the trickling water has slowly excavated
out of the mountain behind the wood, becomes visible,
and I toiled up the steep flight as the vesper bell sounds
through the still twilight. Very rich and full sound the
deep-toned strokes of the ancient single bell, such as all
these Buddhist temples possess. A gate leads into a
paved courtyard, whence another flight of steps ascends
to a terrace, which runs in front of three spacious temples,
all built under shelter of the huge overhanging cavern. A
stone basin rises from the terrace, filled by the perpetual
dripping from the roof of the cavern, some sixty feet
above, which, as one sits in the guest-room, and looks
out through it on to the wood, has all the appearance of
a shower of rain. The cave, called ‘Lung Wang Tung”
or Dragon King Cavern, is about too yards across the
opening, and extends inwards almost the same distance.
At the back of it is a lake, which the priests say extends
inwards an unknown distance; only one man has ever
tried to explore it, and he never came back again. They

The “ Literary Buddha” Temple 43

objected to my launching their boat upon it, as this is
never done but in times of drought, when they go upon
the lake to solicit the dragon prince to turn himself round
and produce rain. Were the dragon to come out at this
opening and escape out of the country, according to Chinese
superstition, there would be another Biblical deluge. Hence
the three temples to shut him in safely.

The whole scene was so weirdly romantic that I longed
to explore it more thoroughly, and next morning I started
early, and walked four or five miles up another ravine,
fuller of precipices than anything I had seen yet, with again
a dreary dry river-bed, a special feature of the conglomerate
country, and a waterfall, now almost dried up, which seemed,
as far as I could judge, to make one leap of over 1000 feet.
In this region the valleys, bordered by precipices with
bulging sides, mostly end not in winding narrowing glens,
but in precipices abruptly shutting them in. A steep climb
brought me to the top of a ridge, whence the inaccessible-
looking “ Wén Fo Shan” suddenly burst upon my astonished
view like a coup de thédtre. At my feet a yawning gulf
separated me from the conical “ Wén Fo,” or as the few
Europeans who have visited it call it, the Dome, which was
only connected with the ridge—upon which I was sitting, to
prevent being blown off—by a narrow causeway, from four
to ten feet wide, and with vertical walls some hundreds of
feet deep. Opposite, reaching two-thirds up the Dome, a
perpendicular wall of rock stretched for a thousand feet
downwards, looking almost as if it had been planed, so
smooth was it. And these startling features were framed in
what by itself would be a glorious amphitheatrical view of
range beyond range of mountains. Crossing the causeway,
looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, I was con-
fronted by the steep cone, up which a scrambling path leads

44 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

to a narrow platform at the top, upon which is built a small
temple. After spending an hour gazing on the jagged peaks
all round, I got back to the causeway, not without some
difficulty, and retraced my steps to the Dragon King’s
cavern, where I spent a second night. A fourteen miles’
walk brought me back to Ichang next day, through a lovely
little village, the prettiest feature in the view from Ichang.
The bright morning air, following on a frosty night, gave
this return walk a special charm.

On another occasion I arranged a more distant trip to.
the “Yun wu Shan,” or Cloud-mist Mountain. Having
slept in my boat, I landed at seven a.m. at the mouth of the
Ichang Gorge, and started to walk up a lovely glen that
falls into the main gorge, both being cut out of the lime-
stone, of which the region north and west of Ichang is com-
posed, in contradistinction to the conglomerate mountains,
which cover the country to the south and east. This glen
has a level bottom, varying in width from 50 to 200 yards,
entirely occupied by the bed of the stream, which flows
through it, and bounded throughout the first few miles, until
it widens out and forms cultivable bottoms, by limestone
precipices, perpendicular and overhanging, about a thousand
feet high. The side ravines are filled with beautiful ferns
and evergreens. Finding that the pace of a coolie-cade
(compare cavalcade) is that of its slowest component, I on
this occasion had picked out my best coolie, and he alone
followed me with my bed and food slung to the two ends of
the common carrying pole; the former two thick double
blankets, the latter two loaves of brown bread, one tin of
cocoa, with a tin of milk. The paths wound up another
ravine seemingly endless, and the mountain I was seeking
seemed always still twenty li (seven miles) distant. At
length, at three o’clock, the ravine widened out, and the path,

Chinese Hospitality 45

hitherto confined to the bed of the stream, ascended, by
flights of rough steps cut in the limestone, to a terrace upon
which stood a first-class Chinese house. I sat down
upon the parapet of the terrace, while waiting to make
further inquiries as to the distance and direction of our
goal.

Two young men came out with a shy manner, but with
a politeness common enough in the poor, though unusual in
the rich, where a foreigner is concerned, invited me “ Ching
tso chi cha !”—“ Please sit down and drink tea!” Chinese
good manners would have bid me refuse, but I took them
at their word, being tired and wanting their information.
They advised me not to attempt to ascend the peak that
night, the path being a wild one, with no house on the way,
and that I had better stay where I was and go in the morn-
ing. I decided to accept this unexpected hospitality, and
I spent the rest of the daylight walking about the grounds
and admiring the site. Perched, according to my aneroid,
goo feet above the river, and about 250 above the brawling
stream that had cut out the valley, down to which a steep
wooded slope extended, the tops of the nearest trees were
barely above the parapet level. Looking down-stream a
couple of miles, to where the vista was closed by the steep
mountain, up the foot of which we had just ascended, the
small plateau was enthroned between jagged rocks rising
1000 feet on either side—one supposed to represent a lion,
the other an elephant, co-guardians of the site. Behind
was steeply terraced ground, by which the path up the
valley passes to the higher range beyond, whose fantastic
tops the last rays of the setting sun were momentarily gild-
ing. Iwas delighted with my resting-place, and my con-
gratulations to the owner, on the beauty and auspiciousness
of the site, were thoroughly sincere.

46 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

As night set in, we all sat on the outrageously uncom-
fortable Chinese benches round a wood-fire, burning in a
circular depression surrounded by a stone rim in the floor,
the smoke escaping through the tiles—though first arrested
midway by a tier of hams—and, as we sat there passing the
hubble-bubble or water-pipe, it was to me most interesting
to watch the farm-servants coming in, one after the other,
and taking their seats round the fire, some crowding on the
same bench as their masters. Supper of rice, cabbage, and
bean curd was soon served, and washed down with tea.
The servants then sat down to the same table, but were
served with mountain rice, grown in dry ground, and very
inferior to that grown in a wet soil; the cooks being women
and “ ya-tou,” or slave-girls so called, all unfortunately with
artificially crippled feet. The two sisters of my hosts looked
on, but neither sat down nor ventured a word while J was
present. Before eight o’clock we were all in bed. All
travellers carry their own bed quilts in China, the guest-
room merely containing a bare bedstead, and often not that.

By conversing with my hosts, I learnt that the terraced
lands on both sides belonged to them, and that they mostly
farmed them on the méfayer system. Their nett income
was 700 to 800 piculs of grain, making them wealthy land-
owners for these parts; though, translated into sterling, this
only amounts to £300 a year. But such a family, having
their own vegetable-garden and farmyard, would not spend
one-tenth of this sum. ‘The surplus they appeared to invest
in buying more mountain land, and in keeping up the stone
dykes of the innumerable terraces. The Government land
tax averages one-tenth of the gross produce.

Next morning I made an early start, as the sun was
creeping down the valley. I, however, first had breakfast
with my hosts, who would not even allow me to give any

View of ‘‘ The Pyramid,” on Opposite Bank, taken from the Promenade on
Top of Ichang City Wall. This Natural Pyramid of Sandstone, rising
soo Feet above the River, is almost identical in Size and Shape with the
Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt (p. 4o).

Ferry opposite Ichang City at Mouth of Small River: Sandstone Cliff (p. 50).
[To face p. 46.

Taoist Monastery and City of Refuge 47

cash to their servants, kindly observing I should need all I
had before I got back.

We went on by an ascending path behind the house, and
continued our route up the valley. The paddy-fields,
terraced up the course of the mountain streams, the smallest
and highest terrace containing only a few square yards of
land, were covered with a thin coating of ice; the air was
fresh and bracing; until by nine or half-past, the rising sun
had climbed over the mountain-tops. After an hour and a
half’s walking, we reached a pine wood, through which the
ascent was steep and difficult. Here I found some wood-
cutters, resting and smoking their pipes round a log fire. I
joined them, and having had a smoke with them, prevailed
on one of them to act as guide to the top of Yun wu Shan,
now at last visible, its white temple towering up, like a doll’s
house, on the cliff above. The climb from this point was
exceedingly steep, and it was only with the best will that my
coolie, laden with my bed, managed slowly to clamber up
after us. At length the long-expected summit was reached,
a small Taoist temple, with balustraded terrace in front
occupying the whole of the available ground. The daily
weather here is extraordinarily regular, dead calm up to
noon, when a light breeze sets in up river (S.E.), analogous
to a sea breeze, increasing to a fresh breeze towards sunset,
when it dies away again altogether. By going up in the
morning, I avoided the cold gale, which meets one on these
mountain-tops later in the day. It was a beautiful calm
sunny morning, but unfortunately misty, and the view only
extended over an endless succession of steep mountain
peaks with rich valleys between. Most of these limestone
mountains are crowned by a “chai,” somewhat analogous to
the Maori “pah;” bare limestone precipices form the last
hundred feet, and the rest of the mountain exterior is

48 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

formed of the talus. In these distances the “chai” look like
magnificent castles, and in ancient times they formed camps
of refuge for the inhabitants of the valleys below in the not
unfrequent times of political disturbance. Many of the
places about here still have “ barbarian” names into which
enters the forbidden character “1,” which is composed of
the hieroglyph for a man with a bow or a man squatting,
which used also to be applied to us English in Imperial
proclamations. The temple was small, and occupied by
a very poor, solitary, old Taoist priest, who was much
pleased to receive a visitor, but too abaztz in manner for
me to get anything out of. He lit a wood-fire to cook
mien, or vermicelli, which we had bought on the way, and
gratefully received my present of 100 cash—equal to four-
pence of our money—though an empty beer-bottle would
have pleased him better.

My aneroid had fallen three inches, making the peak
about 2700 feet above the “San yeu tung” glen. We
descended by the regular footpath on the Ichang side, which
though steep was nothing out of the way; alternately
scrambling over rocks, and walking in the bed of the nearly
dry torrent, under lofty cliffs riddled with caves, and what
are commonly called Ichang rocks. These are half-decayed
stalactites, waterworn by the summer torrents, full of the
seed of the maidenhair fern, of which they often bear a
waving forest in miniature. There is a great demand for
these rocks amongst the Europeans at Hankow and Shanghai.
As the sun was setting, we left the interminable winding of
the ravine, and ascended the side of the valley to a “ling”
or gap. This pass, called “Chin féng po” or “ Ascent of
the Golden Peak,” was occupied by half a dozen mud-
walled houses, on the ground of one of which I spread my
bed, and squatted thereon while awaiting supper. The

Model Hotel Bill 49

Hiusupation of Chinese houses after dark, being barely

“ darkness visible,” I always burden my coolie with foreign
candles, which are much admired, and without which
travelling in China is simply misery. At the wood-fire on
the ground I cooked my “ Cadbury ”—another indispensable
when travelling in winter amongst savourless nations—and
enjoyed with it a good supper of mountain rice and bean
curd. Porters, the humble beasts of burden of the land-
roads in South and Mid-China, with “ pei-tz” on their backs
—some twenty to thirty—dropped in and shared the floor,
each unrolling a mattress of plaited straw from the corner,
for the use of which he paid ten cash.

My model hotel bill, on leaving the next morning,
was :—

Supper for self and coolie, 4 bowls of rice at 10 cash (copper

cash), ‘‘ fixings’ of cabbage and bean curd free... wee 40
Use of straw-plaited mattress for se ZatlO on eee se §«=6.20
Breakfast, same as supper .. oes ss vse 4O
Supper and breakfast for ‘ Nigger,” my dog we 20
Pair of straw sandals for coolie (his old ones F hsing worn ‘out) ows AZ

132

Total 132 copper cash, or, in English money, 4d.

We were off at eight, and after a long tramp, during which
we crossed on a single plank bridge a beautiful clear river,
200 yards wide and five to ten feet deep, flowing between
conglomerate cliffs, we reached Ichang at two p.m., after a
most delightful two days’ outing.

50 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

CHAPTER IV.

ABOVE ICHANG,

Start for the gorges—Grand cowf-a’ai/—Tourist’s inscriptions—A
factory of boulders—Advantages of a light boat—A Temple
School—A ‘* Feng Shui” problem.

St. Patrick’s Day.—A lovely summer morning with dew
on the grass and fragrance in the air; violets everywhere.
Finished writing my mail, and despatched it by the overland
post—a courier who performs the overland journey to
Hankow in five days. After breakfasting ashore with my
kind host, I now at last set sail direct for the gorges.and the
Far West. A still sunny day, with a breath from the east-
ward barely sufficient to fill our big lug-sail; but our crew
having been reinforced with three additional rowers, we
made good progress crossing the now submerged sand-flat, .
which two days ago seemed to occupy a fourth of the river’s
width. For the summer rise has begun, and the level has
risen five feet during my short stay at Ichang, and the width
is increased by several hundreds. Poling and rowing over
this bank, we avoid the deep water and strong current of
the clifflined shore opposite, until after a distance of three
miles, we were compelled to cross the river, and the trackers’
labours began. Jumping on the rocks, they scrambled with
the tow-line around immense boulders, and along narrow
ledges, which afforded a bare foothold to the sandal-shod

of our active Szechuan crew.

The Ichang Gorge 51

The reach of the river above Ichang is about three-
quarters of a mile wide, and has all the appearance of a
mountain loch ; no sign of an outlet is visible, and as, toiling
against the small rapid or “Chi-pa,” you approach the
upper end, the river seems lost entirely. Suddenly, on the
left, a cleft in the mountains comes in sight, and lo! there
is the Great River narrowed to 400 yards, flowing slowly and
majestically between precipitous limestone cliffs which, in
the distance, seemed to close together, and to leave no
room between them, The view and the surprise that burst
upon one for the first time are indescribable, and no pen
can paint the beauty and impressiveness of the panorama
that slowly unrolled itself during the next three hours, as
we made our way slowly up some ten miles of the gorge to
our moorings for the night. The water in the gorges is
extremely deep (50 to 100 fathoms). Nota ripple disturbs
its surface, and not a sound beyond the occasional echoes
of the trackers’ voices breaks the awful stillness. Clouds
enveloped the higher peaks and enhanced the gloom of the
chasm up which we slowly crawled. Dr. Henry, who had
accompanied me at the start, left me at the mouth of the
gorge, and I was alone—for the Chinaman can never be a
sympathetic companion to the European—and I rejoiced
that it had been my good fortune to visit the Yang-tse
Gorges before the coming stream of European tourists, with
the inevitable introduction of Western innovations in their
train, should have destroyed their Old-World charm. Such
scenery it is impossible properly to appreciate, if it has to
be rushed through with steam, leaving no time to study the
details or to fix any one picture firmly in the mind before
it is obliterated by the next. The photographs and drawings
that have hitherto been made of the Ichang Gorge fail
lamentably to convey any idea of the size, which is the

52 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

most striking feature. The dark limestone strata being
disposed horizontally, and the cleavage being vertical,
account for the striking forms, the towers and buttresses, into
which the mountains have been cut up; the narrow side
glens, where small streams enter the river, are equally wall-
sided, and each turn in the valleys is arightangle. Vegeta-
tion, wherever a ledge affords room, is rich and abundant,
and the air in springtime is scented and the gloom enlivened
by the fruit-trees, now masses of blossom.

The river no longer presented the pellucid appearance
which had delighted me between Shasze and Ichang, the
spring freshet being of the usual thick muddy colour.
Nothing struck me more than the wild unfrequented aspect
of the reach as it opened out, there being apparently
nothing but a few isolated sampans to be seen in the whole
stretch of the water. As we advanced, however, these
seeming sampans turned out to be large junks of eighty to
one hundred tons, laden with Szechuan produce, and each
rowed by twenty up to sixty men, their masts lowered, as
always, for the downward trip, and their hulls dwarfed by the
colossal dimensions of the surrounding scenery to the size
of small boats.

We passed picturesque little villages nestling in the glens
amidst miniature patches of wheat and the white blossoms
of the plum trees ; other glens were clefts, over the ledge of
which, some 150 feet above the river level, tumbled a crystal
waterfall. I wished to stop and fill up at one of these, but
my Chinaman declared spring water to be unwholesome, and,
as we have only one water-holder on board, I desisted.
Distance travelled, forty li, say ten miles.

Monday, March 19th.—Second day in the gorges. I
am careful to give the date of each day’s notes, as the
river varies so wonderfully at different seasons that any

‘eS “¢ anf oz |
‘DOUVISICT A|PPIP UL ‘(AowwUNY ul pasaaoa) ,, BIg Surdadjg oys,, ‘yoy snosaSuvq !o38105 Suavyoy uy yeoq-asnoyy

The Summer Rise 53

description must be carefully understood only to apply to
the day upon which it was written.

In summer, when the river rises sixty to one hundred feet
and more above the lowest level, which occurs in February,
the volume of water covers up the rocks, and in lieu of
smart local rapids interspersed with long stretches of com-
paratively still water, we find a continuous whirling torrent
running about six knots. Now, in March, the river had
only risen a few feet, and I saw it, for the first time, under
its winter aspect. At this period the navigation is safer for
junks, which crawl along the shore, often bumping against
the rocks as they go, while steamers, to whom the current in
itself would prove no obstacle, would necessarily be run
more easily in the high-water period.

We weighed again at daybreak. After a cup of coffee,
I went ashore and observed the quarrymen at work ; the
limestone, which is extensively used in the plains for build-
ing and for facing embankments, coming largely from the
Ichang Gorge. No explosives are used, the blocks of stone
being separated by rows of iron wedges. Passing these
quarries, the river takes an abrupt right-angled turn, and on
rounding the sharp precipitous corner, a fresh scene of
beauty opens out. This turn of the gorge is known locally
as the “ Teng ying tse” hsia, or gorge of the “ Lamp-shine ;”
the lower reach, called by us foreigners the Ichang Gorge,
being known to the Chinese as the “ Hoang mao” hsia,
or “Yellow cat” gorge, from the supposed resemblance
of one of the wom limestone rocks to this animal. In
this gorge the right bank rises again in limestone cliffs,
their summits crowned with weathered rocks, looking
positively like the walls and battlements of impregnable
mountain castles. The left bank, less precipitous, affords
room for picturesque villages on its receding ledges,

54 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

embowered in miniature groves of the tung or varnish tree,
the tallow tree, and bamboo. Theupper end of the gorge
narrows like its mouth, a harder limestone having succeeded
marvellously in resisting the constant erosion of the sand-
laden water. Here to the left is a striking range of per-
pendicular white pinnacle rocks and cliffs, 3000 feet high,
which rise out of a talus extending about halfway up their
sides, These cliffs reminded me of the pictures of the
dolomite mountains of Styria, and are probably composed of
the same material. On the right bank the black-blue limestone
continues; at the narrowest spot an isolated pinnacle,
smooth rock below, but wooded on its cone-shaped top, rising
1800 feet from the river bed, and called by the Chinese
the Pillar of Heaven, is strikingly picturesque.

Following the boat by an easy path some 200 feet above the
water’s edge, I felt fairly intoxicated with the magnificence
of the ever-changing views, combined with the fresh spring
morning air. At the end of the gorge an affluent enters
through a lovely valley on the left bank at a place called
Nan-To. A conspicuous rock at the junction is covered
with sentences in large characters, written in whitewash,
probably by travellers delayed in boats moored at its foot.
Had I been in the vulgar West, I should have taken them
for quack advertisements; but in the zsthetic East these
notices were short poetical exclamations at the beauty of
the scenery—not very profound, such as “ Kiang tien yi
sai,” “The river and the sky are one colour:”—“ Shan
shui ching yin,” “ The hills are bright and the waters dark,”
etc. This stream forms the boundary between the limestone
and the district of Plutonic rocks we are now entering. Here,
the river, instead of cutting out a perpendicular chasm, has
succeeded in disintegrating the apparently far more refractory
gneiss and granite, with the result of a total change and

“ Pillar of Heaven” in Ichang Gorge; Limestone Pinnacle rising
1800 Feet above River. [ To face p. £4.

The Granite Valley a0

marvellous contrast in the scenery. A valley, over a mile
in width, has been excavated, and the ruins are strewn
about in gigantic piles of boulders through which the now
narrowed winter stream winds its way in a series of small
rapids. The view from one of the surrounding heights is
an extraordinarily wild one, and one might, looking down
on the stony river-bed, imagine one’s self rather on the
desolate shores of the Red Sea than in the midst of one
of the most fertile provinces of China. The hard gneiss, where
still in sight, is traversed by curious dykes of green-stone
and porphyry which run at right angles to the river’s course,
the strata inclined almost to the perpendicular. This granitic
axis of the mountain range, through which the Yang-tse
forces its way, and which bears the limestones and sandstones
on its flanks, barely exceeds 4000 feet in height, although
to the south the mountains appear to rise to double this
height, but they have never yet been visited and measured
by Europeans. This stretch of river is known as the
“ Vao-tsa-ho,” and is much dreaded by the boatmen; in
some places piles of loose granitic rocks rise out of the
middle of the channel, and everywhere the unfortunate
trackers have to scramble up and down hills of broken rock
masses which would puzzle a chamois to climb. The main
channel is comparatively broad and deep; but the junks
prefer the narrower channels near the shore, where they can
track almost continuously. This “ Yao-tsa-ho” extends for
about fifteen miles, until the “ Tunk-Ling,” as the next gorge
is called, is reached. Here we had a gale of wind
aft, and it was possible to sail up in midstream between
the rocks instead of being tracked up in comparative safety
alongshore. The Lao-ta (skipper), nothing loth to save
a few cash, reckoned without his host in the shape of his
mate, who, when ordered to hoist up the sail, remarked to

56 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

me, “He orders me to risk my all, my life, for I possess
nothing else; it is well enough for him, the owner of the
junk, and a rich man, to put only his life in jeopardy !”—a
fine Gilbertian fallacy! In this distance we passed up three
rapids, the only really difficult one of which was the “ Ta-
Tung,” or Otter’s Cave rapid, the current of which in the
main channel, where it was unbroken, was running seven or
eight knots for a distance of half a mile. We passed up
by a small inner channel, with a regular waterfall at the top ;
but with our own four trackers, and a dozen additional
coolies engaged at an additional cost of fourpence in all,
we gradually scraped through, although our progress was so
slow as to be hardly perceptible. With the elastic oak
bottom of our little craft bumping occasionally on the
boulders, we ascended with comparative ease; but for the
large junks, that have to keep far out in the stream, the
surmounting this, one of the minor rapids, is a troublesome
business, and a whole day is’ well spent in its successful
negotiation. We passed several big junks thus toiling up,
our low mast and tow-line passing under theirs, and I con-
gratulated myself upon having put up with the discomforts
of a small boat, rather than spend double the time over the
journey in a big one.

Our light canoe-shaped vessel seemed to suffer no harm
from its occasional bumping on the rocks, but the big junks
do not always get off so easily. We passed a cotton junk
bound up-stream, which only the previous day had knocked
a hole in her bottom at this very spot. Her crew were
encamped on the bank under the mat roof taken from their
boat, and had got out the bulk of her cargo of cotton
bales, and spread them out on the bank to dry, the bales
having been all opened, and the cotton scattered over the
rocks, The junk herself they had managed to bring into

Nude Water-trackers 57

a quiet little bay, where they had careened her for repair.
I was told of the bad fortune of another Lao-ta (Chinese
captain) last year, who met with a similar accident, which
he successfully repaired, and had just re-stowed his cargo
and started again, when he made a total loss only five li
higher up.

A big junk of 120 tons carries a crew of over 100 men,
viz. seventy or eighty trackers, whose movements are directed
by beat of drum, the drummer remaining on board under
the direction of the helmsman ; a dozen or twenty men left
on board to pole, and fend the boat off the boulders and rocky
points as she scrapes along, and also to work the gigantic
bow sweep formed of a young fir-tree. Another half dozen
of the crew are told off to skip over the rocks like cats, and
free the tow-line from the rocky corners in which it is
perpetually catching : besides a staff of three or four special
swimmers called “ tai-wan-ti,’ or water-trackers, who run
along, naked as Adam before the fall, and may be seen
squatting on their haunches on rocks ahead, like so many
big vultures, prepared to jump into the water at a moment’s
notice and pounce upon the tow-line, and free it when it
catches on a rock inaccessible from the shore. These tow-
lines are made of strips of bamboo plaited into a cable as
thick as the arm, requiring great skill in coiling and un-
coiling, which is incessantly being done, as the necessities
of the route require a longer or shorter line, Notwithstand-
ing its enormous toughness, owing to constant fraying on
the rocks a tow-line only lasts a single voyage, and when
one sees deep scores cut by the tow-lines into the granite
rocks along the tow-path, the fact is readily accounted for.

The trackers of our humble craft stripped themselves of
everything but one jacket, being in and out of the water all
day long, and, as it was, we at times caught the tow-line,

58 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

when the boat would drift back on the rocks before it was
freed again; but we managed to start ahead again just in
time to avoid incurring serious damage.

I spent most of the day ashore, in light flannels and pith
hat, and found clambering over the rocks in the wake of the
trackers at times aserious matter. Part of the day 1 walked
along the right bank, on the upper path clear above the
river’s summer level, and on érra firma, distant a quarter
of a mile inland from the present shore, and so escaped the
boulders and sand-hills, which, although I was at an eleva-
tion of two hundred feet, entirely concealed the water of the
river from view. The aspect as thus seen was that of a vast
desert valley filled with loose piles of rocks enclosed in
barren sandbanks. The peasants here carry everything in
a bamboo crate on the back, held in position by bamboo
straps across the shoulders; and it isa relief to be rid of
the eternal carrying-pole on which the Chinese sling all
their burdens in the Eastern provinces. One man I met
was loaded with a huge sack containing seed of the T’ung,
or Dryander (the varnish tree), weighing 220 catties (300
Ibs.), with which he was merrily climbing the steep ascent.
At sunset we rowed across to the left bank, rounded the last
rapid-making point, and moored in a quiet bay at the
entrance to the “ T’ung ling hsia,” the “ Pierced Mountain ”
gorge.

I went ashore, and gazed into the mysterious black-look-
ing cleft we are to pierce to-morrow, not without an eerie
feeling at the thought of being shut up in these wild valleys,
struggling with the inexorable water, for another fifteen or
twenty days.

On a ledge of the steep rise I ascended to get a view of
the gorge before us was built a row of five small towers, a
series of which, at intervals of about every three miles, are

One of our Crew on Tow-path near Niu-kan Gorge.
(To face p. 58.

Fatal Wreck 59

erected right along the river from Ichang to Chung-king; the
towers are white, with a bright red sun painted on the face
of each. They are called “ Yen-tun,” or smoke-towers, and
a fire of shavings is lit up in them to give the alarm by
their smoke in the troublous times which so often occur
in the Middle Empire. But most of them are in a ruinous
condition, like all other Government property in this
decaying country. Distance, 130 li, not more than twenty
miles. In a difficult part of a route, the li are reduced
in length accordingly.

Tuesday, March 20th——Third day in the gorges. We
started at 5.15 a.m., and rowed through the T’ung ling hsia,
a long narrow ravine of about four miles, between which and
the romantic ‘“ Niu-kan ma-fei hsia,” literally, Ox-liver,
Horse-lungs Gorge, the river opens out, a rocky boulder-
covered island blocking the way and dividing the stream
into two foaming channels. The exceptionally unromantic
name of this gorge is derived from some curious stalactites,
high up on the face of the entrance cliff, the form of which
portrays the intestines. Nearly all the gorges have been
named by the boatmen from like marks on their walls.
Aided by a fair wind, we ascended the T’ung-Ling rapid,
which intervenes between these two gorges, without
difficulty; but the channel at this period is strewn with
rocks, and the navigation requires great care. It was here
that in September last, the wealthy General Pao-Chao, the
T’i-Tu, or commander-in-chief, of Hu-Peh province, which we
are now in, was wrecked proceeding up stream, through the
junk’s tow-line catching on a rock simultaneously with a
sudden failure of the wind, which otherwise might have
enabled the junk to steer clear of the danger. Two of his
sons and several of his suite were drowned by the capsizing
of the junk in the whirlpool, and he himself was only rescued

60 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

by the lifeboat, one of which, as before mentioned, is
stationed at the foot of each rapid.

We moored the boat for the men’s breakfast at the
entrance of the gorge, in a quiet bay, at the foot of a Taoist
temple, called the “Ching Kiang Sze,” or Pure Stream
temple, from which this gorge enjoys a second name of
the “Miao Ho Hsia” (Gorge of the River Temple). On
the chart it is called the “Lukan” gorge, a misspelling of
Niu-Kan ; it is the entrance to this gorge which forms the
frontispiece of Blakiston’s famous work. But this drawing
gives but a slight idea of the size and grandeur of the
original,

The Taoist temple stands on a steep rise of 150 feet,
with a curtain of lofty hills behind, and precipitous mountains
opposite, rising to 3000 or 4000 feet. Inside the temple—
charmingly situated, like all religious buildings of the Middle
Ages, both in the West and in the East—notwithstanding the
early hour of seven a.m., school was going on, amidst the
usual din, and among the little scholars I noticed one girl,
many of whom, in this part of China, I find attending
school as well as the boys. One boy was reciting his
repetition with his back turned to the master, who at the
same time was employed dictating a fresh lesson to another
urchin—my presence causing no interruption. A steep
glen, with a tiny stream at the bottom, separated the temple
from the village of Miao-Ho, composed of a few scattered
houses, embosomed in poplars, now in the bright green of
the early spring, and peach trees in full blossom. The
village rises in successive terraces, built up of boulders and
backed by groves of cypress and bamboo, as it creeps
up the steep mountain-side. The gorge winds for three
miles between sheer cliffs of limestone, r000 and 2000 feet
high, with higher peaks towering behind, taking a sharp

Triple Rapid of the Ching-t'an 61

rectangular turn in the middle, until the deep ravine opens
out slightly, making room for the extensive scattered village
of Shin T’an, or, as it is locally pronounced, Ching-t’an, on
its flanks,

Shin T’an * means new rapid, and, as its name implies, is
of recent formation, having been created by a fall of rocks
from the precipitous mountain on the right bank, which
occurred in the second year of the reign of the Emperor
Chia-Ching of the Ming dynasty—about 250 years ago.
This is considered the most formidable of all the rapids on
the navigable portion of the Great River. It consists of a
race of water broken into three rapids, the whole extending
over a distance of two miles, in which I estimate the fall in
the river-bed at about twenty feet. The first rapid is due to
a small stream called the Lung-ma-chi, which enters the river
at right angles on the left bank, issuing from a narrow glen,
and which has deposited a huge fan-shaped moraine of
boulders, of nearly half a mile radius, damming up the river
and causing the first of the three rapids of the Ching-t’an.
The other two falls are due simply to barriers of rocks athwart
the stream, the latter like a weir with deep still water above
it—the channel of the Ping-shu Gorge.

While our boat was delayed here awaiting her turn, below
tiers of big junks moored bow on to the shore, I landed for
a walk, in company with our “ Ta-kan-tse-ti,” or bowman,
who took me up a beautifully shady road through the village,
consisting of a steep flight of steps. Arrived on a terrace,
about 300 feet up, on which I had stopped for breath, my
companion pointed out two substantial brick houses, one on
the right and one on the left, and asked what I thought of
their respective Feng-shui, or site. The Chinese, as is well

* Another and more formidable Shin t’an now exists above Viinyang,
formed by a huge land-slip in September, 1896.

62 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

known, place enormous value upon a well-chosen site for a
grave ora house, not so much for the healthfulness of the
position (though this probably is the fundamental conception
of Chinese geomancy), as for its influence upon the de-
scendants of the corpse in the one, or upon the fortunes of
the inhabitants of the other. The lower classes in China
seem to have great faith in the superior knowledge of this
vital subject possessed by the Chinese-speaking foreigner.
At any rate, I have been often consulted on the subject,
and having picked up ‘some of the principles of the science,
all of which accord with natural conditions, and profiting by
the vague latitude allowed to the seer in all ages, I am
seldom at a loss when questioned. In the present case, I
remarked that one house, from which there extended a
magnificent view across the rapids to the gloomy Ping-shu
Gorge, seemed to draw in prosperity from the waters rolling
towards it, while the other seemed to have its fortune wafted
past its door by the up-river wind which here blows steadily
all the year round. My companion was delighted, and asked
me, to my surprise, to enter with him the latter, pronounced
by me the less fortunate, house. I went in, and he then told
me this was his home, and that he had led me this way with-
out warning me, in order to get my true unbiased opinion.
We seated ourselves in the reception-hall, the family and
friends delighted at being able to gratify their curiosity in a
Chinese-speaking foreigner. The old mother, who served
me with the customary tea, was much exercised over the
Feng-shui of her home. They then told me that misfortune
had followed misfortune; the father had lost his junk and
been drowned in the rapids, and now the eldest son, my
companion,was reduced to the hard work and small pay of
a Ta-kan-tse-li. Could I suggest anything? I recommended
a brick screen should be built on the edge of the terrace,

‘zg ‘G arn of | Blersies mance)
sasnoyy JO JOO 0} SASII JaATY ‘syaysety Jowung UT “pidey AVeN puoose oF WAN], TOU) Sunrea syun{

Great Flood of 1870 63

facing the doorway, and that the energetic youngster who
accompanied me should try for employment on one of the
big trading junks—and so satisfied everybody. But shipping
here, as at home, is temporarily much depressed, junks
having been largely overbuilt in the late good times, and
in every quiet anchorage along our route we find big junks
laid up, generally opposite the homes of their owners, who
often possess nice terraced gardens and diminutive farms,
carefully laid out, up the steep ravine in which the river flows.

My little boat occupied just six hours making her way
inch by inch through the foaming water. Meanwhile
we had walked on through the long terraced town to
a tea-house picturesquely built on a cliff above the upper-
most rapid, whence I looked down on the fleet of junks
painfully toiling upwards. At this rapid the junks are
stripped of their cargoes, and crowds of men and boys, from
the mountain country round, are glad to toil as porters over
the boulders for a few cash. Local pilots, too, are always
taken on here, a big junk paying as much as one dollar for
the five minutes occupied in the descent. These pilots are
swells in their way, being well-dressed, and their comfortable
homes adorn the surrounding slopes.

This tea-house, from which I looked down on the smooth
basin above the natural weir of the uppermost rapid, and in
which the junks that had successfully passed up were noisily
re-stowing their cargoes, is situated nearly 200 feet above the
present level of the water, but yet not high enough to save it
from the disastrous floods of 1870 (gth year of Tung chih).
Traces of that famous flood, which swept away whole cities,
as far down even as the plain of Hankow, are seen in the
fact of nearly all the houses forming the long straggling main
street of Ching-tan being of recent construction. This street
goes up and down long flights of stone steps at intervals,

64 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

to the great grief of the Pei-lo coolies traversing it, with
their piled-up loads on their backs.

We at length got off again with a strong fair wind,
through the “ Ping-shu Pao-chien” hsia, or “Gorge of the
Military Code and the Precious Blade.” This name, too,
is taken from the supposed resemblance of a big group of
stalactites on the cliff to this celebrated emblem in Chinese
ancient history—now often seen as a favourite decoration
on Chinese porcelain and embroidery. This gorge is not
named by Blakiston, nor in the Admiralty Survey. It is about
two miles long and a little over a quarter of a mile wide, and
its walls of perpendicular cliffs are said to descend as far
below the water as they rise above it, 1200 to 1500 feet;
behind are the precipitous mountains rising to over 3000.
The strata dip to the south and west at an angle of about
thirty degrees, and the rocks appear to be formed of a
compact greyish sandstone with shales; in these the water
has in many places eaten out caverns and worn the walls into
columnar shapes. Towing is, of course, impracticable ; but
we came through with a slashing breeze, which enabled us to
stem the two-knot current with ease—a current without a
ripple on its surface, and which seemed like still water after
the “races” of this morning and yesterday. However strong
the gale, the deep swirling water effectually forbids anything
like a sea getting up; and hence the small freeboard of the
junks, which at first sight, to one accustomed to the big seas
that every gale raises on the Lower River, looks uncommonly
dangerous. We hada tough job to get round the point
which forms the western limit of the gorge, the boatmen
clinging on to the crevices in the rock with long bamboos
armed with small steel hooks. Beyond the gorge the valley
again opens out ; still, however, enclosed by mountains, one
peak on the left bank rising to 4000 feet. Near to, and just

Home of Retired ‘‘ Armateur’

at Shin t’an, Mouth of Pingshu: Gorge.
[To face p. 64.

A Dangerous Path 65

outside the exit of the gorge, I noticed the poplar-trees all in-
clined to the west, being grown somewhat in the form of a
capital S, showing that the prevailing wind, much to the
benefit of the ascending junks, is here, as usual, up-stream.

From here we came to the city of Kwei-chow, a distance
of six miles; the channel, as is usual where the valley widens,
is encumbered with huge rocks and boulder-covered sand-
banks, forming a succession of rapids and races through
which we struggled, aided by the strong breeze, and crossing
from side to side to take advantage of the different eddies,
until at last, at five p.m., we made fast to the bank opposite
Kwei-chow, prevented from ascending farther by a couple
of junks which had taken up their position here for the night,
while the roaring stream outside them ran too strong
for us to attempt to work round past them. We thus lost
the benefit of the strong breeze which was still blowing,
and had to put up with a day’s work of sixty li, say fourteen
miles, but which, on looking back, owing to the extra-
ordinary interest of the journey, seemed more than ten times
that distance.

Kwei-chow is a picturesque walled city, situated ona bluff
some 200 feet above the river, and at the mouth of a small
affluent ; at the back rises the mountain range, up part of
which its walls, which enclose many gardens and trees, creep
in pear-shaped outline. It looks from this distance (the
opposite shore) a well-built city; but it has no trade, not a
single boat or junk being moored near it. From under its
walls, reefs of black rock run out, and the current rushes
past like a mill-race. Before we came to our anchorage,
I had been walking along the shore, following the trackers.
At length the towing-path rounded a smooth, almost pre-
cipitous rock, about 100 feet above the river level, until at last
the narrow footway came to an end, and the elbow of the slope

F

66 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

was rounded by some ten or twenty single footsteps cut in
the face of the smooth limestone, just large enough for the
small feet of a Chinaman. I was stuck. I could not go for-
ward, and dared not turn round to go back; the trackers
were far ahead, and the short twilight was fast merging into
night. I was almost in despair, when fortunately one of the
trackers came back to look for me. Carefully divesting
myself of my boots, avoiding a glance at the foaming water
below, and holding the man’s hand, I soon got over ; but what
a path for men harnessed toa tow-line to risk their necks on!

The sun was very hot to-day ; though the latitude is the
same as Shanghai, and the altitude soo or 600 feet greater, the
spring here is fully a month in advance ; the wheat is already
over a foot high, and the air is fragrant with the bean-fields
in flower. Every bit of sand left dry by the river’s winter
fall is sown in wheat, as are many of the apparently
inaccessible slopes of the mountains; and the wonder is that
it is not all blown away, or that any is harvested before
the rise now going on, at the rate of two or three feet a day,
overwhelms it. With regard to the Shin-tan pilots,—these
men, our Lao-ta tells me, earn from one to eight dollars a
junk, according to its size; this includes assistant-trackers
for junks bound up, and no junk ventures to negotiate the
rapids either way without them ; they are smart, active men,
and are licensed by the officials. Our humble Shen-poh-tse,
creeping up under the bank, required no pilot, and the only
extra charge for ascending the Shin-tan was twenty-five cents
for a dozen supplementary trackers; but down-stream she
has to take a pilot ata cost of 300 cash—say one shilling.
(I am writing to the accompaniment of the roar of the rapid,
up which we start at daybreak.)

Wednesday, March 21st——Fourth day in the gorges. An
exciting day. We ascended two fierce rapids, the Yeh-tan

Clawing Ahead 67

and the Niu-kou-tan, one minor rapid, called the Heng-
liang-tse, and innumerable Chi-pa or races. These latter
are caused by a projecting point of rock, behind which we
paddle up in the eddy, then land the trackers at the point,
and ease the shock of the boat’s head against the rocks by
a stiff pole over the bows, round which is twisted a
“stopper ” rope, which fends her off very effectually. Four
of our crew of seven then drag the boat by main force round
the point, two men remaining on board to fend her off the
rocks, the water meanwhile boiling and foaming under her
bows and threatening to swamp her. The helmsman mean-
while takes care to keep her as much as possible head on
to the current, and shouts to the trackers when to haul and
when to slacken. Oftentimes at the most critical moment
the manceuvres are compromised by the tow-rope catching
in an almost inaccessible crevice, when we hang in a most
uncomfortable position until one of the trackers runs back,
climbs with his bare feet cat-like up the rocks, and, apparently
at the risk of his life, releases us. Then, when we have
safely reached the comparatively smooth water, if the banks
are precipitous, as on the greater part of our route to-day,
the whole crew jump on board and claw us along under the
overhanging cliffs—two men clinging on to the rocks with
the sharp iron claws affixed to the end of their boat-hooks,
while two others, with poles, keep her off a safe distance
from them. The hookers have to be mighty careful never
to lose their hold, as that involves drifting back into the
current, and bringing up some distance below, losing in a
minute or two the fruits of hours of work. Twelve hours of
this sort of progress is very tantalizing, as when once an
accident has happened, as occurred to-day, one is always in
dread of another, and one’s nerves are kept on the stretch all
the time. Where practicable, I walk ; but as the practicable

68 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

path is usually some 200 to 300 feet above the river,
and often, as it crosses a projecting point, entirely out of
sight of the boat, this is not always convenient. In one
place this afternoon, after walking two miles in as many
hours, stepping from boulder to boulder, I was only too
glad to descend and come on board again, as soon as a
sandy bay allowed the boat to bring up to the shore with
safety. It was at the Shin-tan, owing to the catching of the
tow-line in the rocks and its subsequent snapping, that
Consul Gardner with his two Hankow friends came to grief
last month.

Next day we were off again at dawn (5.15), and crossed
to the north bank, where I landed on a rocky point, and
scrambled up 200 feet to the high level path, above which
the villages in these more open valleys are built. By open
valley, I mean a valley where the banks are not precipitous,
as in the gorges; but they are still steep enough to rank as
gorges on an ordinary river. In fact, the whole journey
thus far has been in an almost continuous gorge and rapid.
The reach above Kwei-chow has a picturesque charm of its
own, from the steep mountain-sides being cultivated in
patches to their summits, and studded with small villages
embedded in trees and bamboo... . At one village I
noticed a small stack of patent fuel, coal-dust kneaded with
clay into diminutive round cakes, just the size for a Chinese
portable oven, and I traced the coal to a small adit in the
side of the hill, shored up with timber, not more than three
feet high, and less than two feet wide. Out of this miserable
hole women laden with baskets of coal-dust on their backs
were painfully toiling. A small stream of water was running
out of the foot of the burrow. Thousands of these primitive
workings are seen along the whole length of the ravine, up
to and past Chung-king.

A Narrow Escape 69

At the head of this reach is the Yeh-tan, after the Shin-tan
the worst rapid on the river. Here a huge cone of dejection,
entirely covered with loose boulders of every size, shape,
and colour, juts out from the north bank across three-fourths
of the river’s bed, narrowing the channel to about 150 yards.
Round the point of the cone the current sweeps with a
speed of eight to ten knots, a smooth tongue of water in the
centre bounded by a sea of broken waves. We had sur-
mounted the formidable Shin-tan in safety, but this rapid
looked much worse. The saying puts it—

Yo Ching wu Yen:

Yo Yen wu Ching,
which being interpreted means: “When the Ching (or
Shin-tan) is bad, the Yen rapid is nothing;” and, “ When
the Ching is nothing, then fear the Yen.”

Now, we had found the “ Ching” fair, and so had reason
to dread the “ Yen.”

A fleet of big junks—fifty or sixty—being moored under
the point on the left bank, waiting their turn to tow up, our
Lao-ta selected the right or south bank, and thus hoped to
avoid a delay of possibly two days. But the south bank
forming the outer edge of the sweep, the current is more
violent and the rock-bank is precipitous. A gigantic whirl-
pool immediately below the rapid has hollowed out a bay
in the rock-bound bank, and, where the eddy meets the
downward rush, a sharp point projects, which is a ticklish
place for a boat in the hands of trackers to round in safety.
Our Lao-ta having decided to take this course, we crossed
the river, paddled up the eddy, which was running up almost
as fast as the rapid itself was running down, landed our
trackers, and drove the boat’s nose into the broken torrent
while the eddy was still acting on her stern, The rudder
ceased to act; our boat, on entering the down current,

70 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

suddenly shot out towards the middle of the stream; the
trackers were thrown down, and two badly hurt by being
dragged over the rocks, while the boat heeled over,
threatening to capsize on the instant. Fortunately, our
trackers promptly cast off the tow-line in the nick of time,
and we incurred no other danger than being swept violently
down-stream in the eight-knot current. Fortunately, the
up-river breeze still held, and the two men left on board
were able to set the sail in time to get steerage way upon
the boat before she drifted on the rocks below, and the
Lao-ta succeeded in steering her into the eddy on the safer
left bank, with nothing lost but the result of the morning’s
toil. As we suddenly broached-to and lay over for a moment.
in the boiling surf, a cry of “Tachang !” (Broken adrift !)
rose from the crowds on the shore, this being the technical
term for this often disastrous accident. Our Lao-ta now
decided to wait his turn on the left bank, which we even-
tually got up successfully, the water being shallow, and with
no more harm than a few bumps on the rounded boulders
along the shore.

Leaving the Yeh-tan with its animated scenes, we entered
a wide reach, bounded by steep crimson-coloured hills,
about 2000 feet high, patched with bright-green wheat-fields,
the easier slopes affording sites for Alpine villages, sur-
rounded by fruit-trees and evergreens, the former still in
blossom. In this valley are more coal burrows, and at its
head is the rapid of “‘ Niu-kou,” or Oxhead. This is almost
a reproduction of the Yeh rapid, except that the current
sweeps round an angular bend in the river, and the danger
is increased by a circular rock right in the centre of the
channel, from which the rapid takes itsname. From below,
this rock appeared to stand four to five feet out of water;
while looking from above, it seemed just awash ; its surface,

Seven-storied Pagoda below Patung. Note Fluted Rock, about so Feet
High, on Right Hand, being Ancient ‘‘ Pot-holes’”’ in the Limestone worn
through by the Current (p. 70). [ To face p. 70.

Remedying the Aspect 71

flat, was about ten square yards. Above the rapid, we
crossed and recrossed the river, rowing vigorously to catch
favouring eddies, and to avoid numerous “ Chi-pa,” or
races, and then tracked up to the head of the reach to
another right-angled turn in the channel, off the point of
which is the rapid called “ Heng-liang-tse,” i.e. “ the Cross-
beam.” We moored under the point, a pile of loose, precipi-
tous rocks, 150 feet high, detained an hour by a strong westerly
gust of wind and rain, against which it would have been im-
possible to have made headway. At length we made another
start, and crawled and clawed along the precipitous banks
of the Pa-tung reach, past the unwalled district. city of
Pa-tung, in which a small coal trade alone exists. Its main
street is built on a steep bank about roo feet above the present
level, and it is said by unfortunate magistrates appointed
to it to be the poorest district city in the province. Poor
as it is, however, its inhabitants have come to the conclusion
that its poverty is due, not to its isolated situation among
barren mountains, nor yet to the prohibition by the authorities
of modern appliances for improving its coal output, but to
a defect in its “ Feng-shui.” Great sacrifices have therefore
been made to remedy this defect, and evidences of these
are seen in six completed stories of a new pagoda, which is
being built on a conspicuous point of hard white rock on
the left bank, a mile or more below the town. In Eastern
China, where we see the pagodas mostly neglected and in
ruin, we little imagine that new pagodas still continue to be
built in other parts of the empire. Nearly every town on
the river has a pagoda, new or old, situated a mile or two
below it, and generally on the left or north bank (the river
flows roughly east and west), which is supposed to prevent
the wealth of the town being swept past it by the rapid
current for the benefit of the cities below.

re Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Distance, ninety li; say, twenty miles,

Thursday, March 22nd.—¥ifth day in the gorges. At
six a.m. we left the bank under the lifeless city of Pa-tung
in a heavy shower, with cold head-wind, which blew most
uncomfortably through the mat tunnel in which we live. It
is impossible to close up the ends of this tunnel, except at
night, when the boat is moored, as the helmsman requires a
clear view through it to be able to steer. However, in these
parts, the sublimity of the view reconciles one to any amount
of discomfort.

The gorge widens out slightly after leaving Pa-tung, giving
room for piles of gigantic dééris from the neighbouring
mountains to obstruct the river and create numerous small
rapids, which we surmount in the usual painful manner.
The country is wild and desolate-looking in the extreme,
and well explains the poverty of the Pa-tung district. The
Lao-ta tells me, that since the Feng-shui of the district was
“puh”-ed by the pagoda—that we saw building yesterday —
an improvement is already noticeable, a graduate (named
Shu) having at length arisen in the district, which had been
barren of this produce for no less than 200 years previously,
I landed, as usual, when the coolies stopped for breakfast,
about seven a.m. ; not being so active as they in scrambling
over rock déb7ts,I am soon caught up, and have difficulty
in keeping pace with them, until we reach the next landing,
when, the eddy being favourable, we all embark, and take
to the oars.

Not a house or sign of cultivation is visible in this reach.
Two huge, flat reefs of rocks, their sheer face fifty feet high,
but which are covered in summer, now stretch out from
the left bank, occupying two-thirds of the river-channel and
causing a race called by the boatmen a “Chi-kou,” after
which the great Wu-shan Gorge, twenty miles long, opens its

he

~

Our House-boat, with Cliff, in Wushan Gorge.
[ To face p. 72.

Alone with Nature 73

gloomy chasm before us. This is called the “ Wu-shan-ta
hsia,” ze. Witches’ Mountain Great Gorge, so named from
the district city of Wu-shan, the first town over the Szechuan
frontier, which is situated at its upper end. This gorge
varies from 350 to 600 yards in width, and, according to
the Chinese, is unfathomable. Throughout the whole
twenty miles’ length of this grand gorge the river winds
round the base of precipitous cliffs, rising vertically in places
to 1000 feet, with still higher, all but perpendicular, slopes
above, and lofty mountain-pinnacles behind. The entrance,
as the river seems to disappear behind the mountains—range
upon range of which rise above us, the highest summits just
projecting above the fleecy clouds—presents a sublime and
solemn aspect. The silence is complete; the rare junks are
lost in the immensity of the surrounding nature, and as the
current is slack, and a favourable breeze enables the crew
to rest awhile from their oars, Schiller’s verses, written at
Koesen in Thuringia, amidst that beautiful but less grand
scenery, recur to my memory—

*¢ Bin ich denn wirklich allein, in deinen Armen, Natur!”

Here, as at the Shin-tan, I observed kites fishing ; half-
naked men and boys also stand out on the rocks at the foot
of each small rapid, catching the minute fish, which alone
seem to frequent these troubled waters, with a hand dip-net.

We had put our wounded trackers ashore at Pa-tung in
the night, and I was not well pleased to see that, when our
trackers were ashore, we had now only one man left in the
boat, besides the helmsman, to manage her in the event of
our again executing a “Ta-chang,” as at the Yeh rapid
yesterday. The crew’s cook, who formed the spare man on
board, was taking the injured man’s place, and he proves a
most active and powerful worker, although he makes the

74 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

boat reek with opium fumes every night from seven to nine
p.m., while the rest of the men are fast asleep, after their hard
day’s toil. He tells me he has smoked one mace (about
go grains) daily for the last ten years; but the native drug
is milder than the imported, which may account for the fact
of his health being apparently not injured in the slightest
degree by the habit. He is thirty-one years of age, and looks
much younger. Like nearly all the trackers, his naked body
is entirely covered with itch sores, which do not appear to
incommode him in the least.

The mountains here rise to between 2000 and 3000 feet,
but glimpses of higher peaks behind are occasionally caught
through a break in the walls, where a tiny affluent has cut
out a narrow side glen. Two such glens, which open into
the gorge on either bank, form the boundary-line between
the provinces of Hu-peh and Szechuan, which we passed at
four o’clock. A wilder spot could hardly be imagined.
The gorge is not over 500 yards wide; the cliffs, about 700
feet, with lofty peaks behind. A solemn stillness reigns,
only disturbed by the splash of our oars as we advance
slowly, first on one side, then on the other, as we take
advantage of the eddies crawling past the projecting
points where the stream runs strong. One feels at times
the lonelinessi of the ocean, and, as at sea, should anything
happen to the frail craft, the best swimmer would fail to
make a landing. The rocks are still limestone, with super-
incumbent sandstone ; and where the softer rock has been
washed away, the hard limestone forms a colossal terrace to
the cliffs above. This lower terrace is fluted along its water-
face. Perpendicular pot-holes have been bored right down
through it, and the outer walls having been broken through,
this curious fluted surface is the result. In more than one
place, at several hundred feet above the water-level, I

Coffin Gorge and Cedar Garden 75

observed natural caves under an overhanging ledge, the
entrance to which was partially walled up. These inaccessible
nooks had formed the retreat of the sparse inhabitants
during the Tai-ping and other rebellions. In another spot,
at a break in the cliffs, lay a pile of square blocks of what
looked like black-leaded rocks—some as large as a house,
fallen apparently from the summit of the mountain behind
them, all curiously fretted by the water, and looking as
though burnt and blackened in a furnace—and called by
the Chinese, not inappropriately, “ Ho yen shih,” de. Fire
Smoke Rock,

This reach is named the “ T’ieh kwan tsai hsia,” or Iron
Coffin Gorge, from a projecting, coffin-shaped rock in a
towering cliff on the left bank. At its entrance is a rock-
strewn rapid, called the ‘“ Mu-chu tan,” or Sow Rapid, up
which we struggled in the usual way. Above the Coffin
Gorge, iron chains are affixed to the cliffs, fifty feet above
the present level, for the use of the upward-bound junks in
the time of the summer freshets. A junk stole these chains
some time -back, when, upon arriving in Hankow, lo! the
chain had been metamorphosed into a snake! The alarmed
junk people hurried back to the violated spot, and replaced
the snake on the rocks, when it at once resumed its original
form, and now hangs again in its place on the rocks in
evidence !

The last inhabited spot in Hu-peh is the village of ‘ Nan
Mu yu’rh,” ze. Cedar Garden, romantically situated astride a
steep glen, down which flows a small mountain burn, which
has its source in a cavern about one-third of the distance
from the summit of the 2000-feet-high mountain upon which
it is built. The two portions of the village are united mid-
way by a covered bridge. I landed at the foot of a flight of
five or six hundred steep stone steps, which form the main

76 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

street of the village, the houses being terraced up on either
side. Behind the houses are groves of orange, lemon, and
loquat, all evergreens, besides peach and plum-trees, now in
full bloom. Above this charming spot the gorge closes in
again, and leaves no room for habitation, until about six miles
higher up a colossal limestone ledge, backed by precipitous
hills, affords standing-room for the village of “ Pei-shih”
(Back to the rock), the first place we come to in the Szechuan
province. It consists of a long, straggling street, perched up
well out of reach of the summer floods, with an imposing
Taoist temple in its midst. The houses are of the usual
flimsy brick, but stand upon a ledge of hard, smooth, bare
blue limestone, the inhabitants depending upon the passing
junks for a livelihood. Immediately below it is a narrow
glen, now dry, the floods from which in the rainy season have
thrust out a huge cone of sand and boulders, narrowing the
channel and forming a small rapid, which it took us over an
hour to surmount. The upper edge of the terrace, on which
the town is built, is scored in places four to six inches deep
with ruts formed by the fraying of the bamboo tow-lines.
The owner of a small drug-shop—a very poor one, but which
possessed a flag planted on the balustrade before the door,
announcing its owner to be captain of the volunteers of the
place (Twan-lien)—invited me into his house. After serving
me with the customary tea and hubble-hubble pipe, he
informed me that ever since the great Tai-ping Rebellion,
which, it must be remembered, broke out after the empire
had enjoyed a long peace for over 200 years, and the leader
of which, Hung siu chuen, was one of Mr. P. Roberts’
Christian converts made in Canton, the Szechuan people
had organized themselves into trained bands, which, said my
host, would render another outbreak of the kind impossible.
His large family, comprising four generations, stood at a

A Monster of Cruelty 77

respectful distance, and did not crowd round to feel me and
ply me with inane questions, as in the less highly civilized
provinces to the east. Upon my asking him whether he was
a “‘ Pen-ti” (native of the place), he answered, “No!” that
his family had immigrated from Kiang-si in the reign of the
Chien-lung, two centuries ago. At this period, Szechuan
had been almost depopulated by the rebellion suppressed by
Wu-sankwei, which took place during the disturbances which
followed upon the Man-chu conquest of the country. ‘This
was preceded by the rebellion of Chang chung chien, a
monster of indiscriminate slaughter, who is said to have
made a pyramid of women’s feet, crowning it with those of
his own wife, who remonstrated at his cruelty. Szechuan
was thereupon repeopled from the eastern provinces, and
these immigrants still call themselves natives of their
forefathers’ original homes.

I walked on, a mile past the town to the end of the ledge,
crossing the mouth of another cliff-faced glen, looking up
which I again caught a glimpse of mountain-peaks against the
clouds. Turning to the gorge, up which lies our to-morrow’s
course to Wu-shan hsien, I gazed upon the chasm, looking
dark and gloomy in the twilight, the silver streak forming
its floor scarcely recognizable as the representative of the
magnificent Yang-tse. Our boat came round at last, and
moored for the night in the little bay formed by the terrace
end, down which I climbed, and went on board for dinner.

Distance, roo li; say, twenty-five miles.

Friday, March 23rd.—Sixth day in the gorges. Off at
daylight ; a cold wind and rain blowing through the boat.
We scrambled up several small rapids, formed by avalanches
of gigantic rocks from the mountains on the left bank;
rounded one sharp point, where the river seems to disappear
altogether, until at last we came in sight of the opening at the

78 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

end of the gorge, with the welcome sight of Wu-shan city in
the distance, where we landed in the afternoon. I am
getting positively weary of the endless rapids, especially as,
being two men short—a second having succumbed to his
accident at the Yeh-tan—we are decidedly undermanned; and
this day’s whole progress was a hard but gallant struggle, in
which one would gladly have taken part, but which was
almost painful to witness in inaction. The current in this,
the upper end of the Witch’s Gorge, runs fully five knots,
and the crew had to claw us along under the cliffs with
small hooks attached to the end of long bamboos. In one
or two places they managed to track us short distances,
crawling over almost inaccessible rocks. Crossing one bay
cut out by a whirlpool, we took in the tow-rope, leaving the
trackers to walk round, while the one man left on board
besides the helmsman rowed the boat slowly up the eddy,
intending to throw the line out again, to be caught by the
trackers just below the rapid. He miscalculated the direc-
tion, and the boat’s nose, caught by the descending “ race,”
was turned sharply round, and we went flying back, as at the
Yeh-tan. But here there wasno danger. As we were not
attached to the tow-line, the boat took no sheer, and, after
half an hour’s delay, we got back again into the returning
eddy, and then rounded the point successfully. Although
many of these whirlpools are a quarter of a mile in diameter,
and have a deep depression in the centre, there is, where no
rocks obstruct, little danger, the flat bottom and light draft
and great beam of the junks giving the water little hold
upon them. Still, I cannot say, with Mr. Donald Spence,
that with the rapids familiarity breeds contempt, for I find
the long, ceaseless struggle with them beginning to tell upon
the nerves. Probably Mr. Spence never tried them ina
shen-po-tse, z.¢. a small sailing-boat, such as I am now in.

Travelling House-boat, with Tender, moored in Wushan Gorge: Nude
Figure in Foreground, Man who swims out to disengage the Tow-lines :
Tender is steered by Long Stern-sweep: House-boat with Long Bow-
sweep. [Zo face p. 78.

Brine Wells 79

The rapid opposite Wu-shan is due to the obstruction
caused by the moraine of a small affluent, navigable 180 li,
up to the district city of Ta-ling (Ta-ling Hsien), and through
this terminal moraine (if it may be so termed) the stream
has cut down a narrow channel. The district of Ta-ling
produces, from brine wells, the invaluable commodity, salt.
The brine is here evaporated by wood-fires, and not by
natural gas, as further west. The boats which bring down
the salt seem an exact copy of the Venetian gondola, with
their cocked-up sterns, stern-oar, and small mat-house amid-
ships. The boatmen are stark naked, and tanned copper
colour by the sun, having constantly to jump off into the
shallow water and either help the boat along, or else stop her
from grinding too rapidly over the shifting boulders.

The cleft in the limestone hills, in which the long gorge
ends, opens suddenly out into a charming valley, the slopes
of which are cultivated halfway up with tallow-trees and
other sub-tropical fruits. The city itself is picturesquely
situated on the slope immediately facing the gorge, its walls
climbing halfway up the mountain from which it takes its
name. Crossing an extensive sand-flat not yet covered, I
ascended the steep, rocky bank, sixty or eighty feet high,
and entered the south gate, followed by a wondering but re-
spectful crowd. The little urchins ran on in front, shouting,
“ Yang-jen!” (Ocean-man or Foreigner) ; but no ‘ Yang-
kwei-tse” (Foreign Devil) was heard any more from this
time forth, This opprobrious term, by which foreigners are
universally designated in the eastern provinces, is happily
unknown in Szechuan. I ascended the walls, the summit of
which forms the only available promenade in Chinese cities,
and looked down on the smiling valley of the “ Siao-ho,” or
Lesser River, as these affluents are similarly called at each
place, and walked on until where the wall begins to ascend

80 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

the hill atthe back. Here the wall, its top reduced in width
to six feet, is now a succession of steep stone steps, and it
encloses a large extent of fields and farms, the streets proper
being confined to the more level ground near the river.
Like many mountain cities, and as typified in the Great Wall
itself, the walls follow the crests of the hills, apparently lest
the town should be commanded from the neighbouring
heights ; but it results in extending the line of defence beyond
all reason,

From this height the Yang-tse, though nowhere less than
500 yards wide, looks like a mountain torrent meandering
between rocks and sandbanks, the roar of the Hsia-ma rapid,
a few miles above the town, being distinctly heard. Wu-
shan shares the apparent ruin and decay common to all
Chinese towns; but the houses are more spacious, and the
streets wider and cleaner, than in the average of the towns in
the eastern provinces. The left portal of the Wu-shan Gorge
is a steep, conical mountain of about 1500 feet, on the top
of which is a temple, in a grove of evergreens, called the
Wen-feng shan, or Temple of Literature ; behind rises a range
of 2500 feet.

For some inscrutable reason—probably to increase the
number of its literary graduates—Wu-shan is erecting a brand-
new pagoda on this peak, of which our boatmen highly dis-
approve. ‘They say the site is ill-omened ; that it dominates
the Wu-shan rapid and whirlpool; and is bound to cause
disaster. I here had to send in my passport, with my
Chinese card, to the Che-hsien (District Magistrate) ; and
I received a fresh pass, together with an escort of two Ting-
chai (Ya-men runners), appointed personally to conduct me
to the next city. This is a custom peculiar to the West, and
exists since the time when the Chinese local authorities were
rightly made responsible for the murder of Margary in

Entrance to the Bellows Gorge 81

Yunnan. These delegates from the local magistracy (Ya-
men) now attend every foreigner travelling in the “ Four
Streams” province, merchant or missionary alike.

Wu-Shan was our Lao-ta’s home, and we discharged, on
his account, from the bottom of the boat, four bales of
native cotton-cloth, six sacks of rice, and several packages
of incense, which he had taken advantage of the presence of
the foreigner (dreaded by the officials), in his boat, to bring
up from Shasze without paying tax at the numerous Li-kin
stations we had passed on our voyage up. The sun was
now getting powerful, and I was glad to regain the shelter
of the boat, and enjoy our frugal dinner quietly moored in
the calm bay off the town.

Distance, 110 li; say, twenty-seven miles.

Saturday, March 24th, 1883.—Seventh day in the gorges.
Off at dawn, and proceeded up the small rapid just above
the town, the “Siao mao-rh,” or “ Kitten,” running five to
six knots; and then, four miles farther up, the “Hsia ma
tan,” or “Get-down-from-horse rapid,” running seven to
eight knots. This rapid, like many others, where not due
to a reef of hard rocks zx sitw, is caused by the débris
brought down from the mountains by a small side stream
issuing out of a narrow glen. Up this glen is a wonderful
cavern, called the “ Lao-lung-Tung,” or Old Dragon cave, in
passing which mounted men are supposed to descend from
their steeds and do obeisance. Hence the curious name of
the rapid.

Five miles above Wu-Shan the valley closes in again, and
we enter the “ Feng-hsiang,” or ‘“ Bellows,” gorge, so-called
from the imaginary resemblance of a prominence on the
entrance cliff to a Chinese blacksmith’s bellows, which is an
oblong wooden box. This is the last of the great gorges.
Its vertical walls, which appear to run up from 1500 to

G

82 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

2000 feet, have been clean cut by the river, which here
flows directly athwart the mountain range. Where side
ravines break through the walls, we have piles of broken
rocks forming points on alternate sides of the river, round
which the current rushes in alternate rapids and whirlpools.
At one rapid, called “T’o tu tze,” the eddy ran up and
broke over the rocks with the same force as the rapid
proper, into which it shot us with a jerk that showed the
wisdom of the Lao-ta in having sent five men ashore with
two separate tow-ropes, leaving two men upon the deck
forward to promptly sweep her head round to the current
with the bow sweep. Here lay two big junks—their cargoes
of raw cotton neatly housed on shore under a tent made of
the sails and mat covers—hove down on the beach, having
their bottoms replanked, both having come to grief at this
spot while towing up to Chung-king. Another of the red
life-boats, each of which has a crew of four men, was patrol-
ling round this rapid. We afterwards passed the ‘“ Yo sha
Chi” race, the “ Likwei Tan” rapid, and the “ Hu-shu-tse,”
or Tiger’s Beard, the rapid being so named from a dangerous
rock in its midst, round which the current rushed in a circle,
as with water twirled round a washing-basin. The last and
most troublesome rapid is formed by a boulder spit, due to
an affluent on the right bank, in the angle of which, high up
the mountain side, stands the picturesque village of “Ta-
chi kou,” celebrated as the residence of several retired
“armateurs” or junk-owners, who, our Lao-ta informs me,
wisely retired before the present wretched times afflicted the
transport business.

The spit at its mouth dams up the water in the deep
reservoir of the Feng-hsiang Gorge, and we hung fire in the
current formed by the overflow, our five trackers clinging,
on their hands and feet, to the jagged rocks as they pulled

Entrance to Bellows Gorge; Cliffs 3000 and 4000 Feet. In Cliff on the Right
are cut the Square Holes of Méng-liang’s Ladder.
[To face p. 82.

Wars of the Three Kingdoms 83

the boat up inch by inch, I cannot sufficiently admire the
pluck and endurance of these poor coolies, earning but two
dollars in cash for a two months’ voyage, and getting from
the Lao-ta three meals of coarse rice, flavoured with a little
fried cabbage, for their sustenance, upon which they are
called to put forth all their strength from dawn to dark
daily. This place is well named the “ Tsei-ka-tse,” or
“Narrow Barrier,” and it seemed to produce a sudden drop
of four feet, which, with the bad foothold on shore, it looked
an impossibility to surmount.

The Feng-hsiang Gorge is about four miles long, and it
took us three hours to get through it, the crew rowing hard
against the current, which above the Tsei-ka-tse seemed
otherwise hardly perceptible. At its mouth, narrowing the
channel to 200 yards under the right, and to barely 100 on
the left bank, right in the fairway, stands a square-shaped
rock mass, now forty feet out of water, black-polished, as at
the Tsei-ka. This dangerous obstruction is known as the
“Yen-wei shih,” or “‘ Goose-tail” rock. During most of the
time of the summer floods it is about awash; but whenever
it is covered, the authorities at Kwei-chow-fu detain the
junks, and will not allow them to descend until the reappear-
ance of the Goose-tail above the surface. A mark on the
embankment of Kwei-chow city, five miles above, coincides
with the top of the rock, At the present season, this
dreaded rock has all the appearance of a castle built to
command the pass.

All this neighbourhood teems with legends of bygone
days, notably of the wars of the Three Kingdoms in the
second century, when the then kingdom of Hu-peh invaded
the kingdom of Shu or Szechuan by way of the Great River.
The Hu-peh fleet was arrested by a chain stretched across the
naxrowest point in the gorge, near its western exit, and the

84 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

posts to which the chain was affixed are still shown. But
more remarkable is the famous “ Méng-liang ti,” or Ladder
of Méng-liang, which adjoins this spot. There can be no
doubt about the genuineness of this relic, for no sane man
would undertake such a work unless he had Méng-liang’s
object to gain by it. At the time this ladder, so-called,
was constructed, the “Shu” army was encamped upon the
mountains above the precipice, and felt secure in their un-
assailable position, the river being barred, while the cliff
appeared to be insurmountable. But the Hu-peh general,
Méng-liang, got his army up the vertical cliff, surprised the
enemy’s camp, and reaped a victory which ended the domi-
nation of Shu. His plan was effected by making a ladder
up the cliff, here 700 feet vertical. He had square holes cut
in the hard limestone rock, six inches square by about four-
teen deep, into which were inserted wooden beams, up which
his men climbed. The wooden beams have long since
perished, but the holes remain as clean-cut now as on the
day when they were made. These run in zig-zags up the
face of the vertical cliff, until they reach the point where
the slopes above are just practicable for an expert climber.
The day has long past since the now effeminate Chinese
were capable of such heroic exertion, but “ Méng-liang’s
ladder” will remain in evidence for many centuries yet as
a testimony of the valour and determination which inspired
their warlike ancestors.

A grand overhanging peak, with a sheer face of white
limestone, with strata nearly vertical, marks the portal of the
gorge; issuing from which we enter the more open valley,
in which stands the famous prefectual city of _Kwei-chow-fu,
in a position analogous to that of Wu-shan city at the exit
of the Wu-shan Gorge.

On the sandbanks below Kwei-chow, which now occupy

Manufacture of Salt 85

three-fourths of the river’s bed, is the colony of salt-boileries.
The brine is collected in pits dug in the sand, and then
evaporated with the native hard coal, Itis the only place
in China that I have seen present (in the distance) a faint
resemblance to a manufacturing town, due to the quantity
of escaping steam. Rounding this bank, which will be deep
under water again in a few weeks’ time, and a huge boulder
flat beyond, we at length bring up under the walls of Kwei-
chow, and our seven days’ voyage through the gorges proper
is atan end. So many exciting incidents have occurred in
this week that it seems to be more than a month since I
started from Ichang.

Kwei-chow-fu (commonly called Kwei-fu, to distinguish
it from Kwei-chow in Hu-peh, which I have described
above) is a fine city, picturesquely situated on a bold slope,
and is surrounded by. high, crenellated walls, with turreted
gateways, and four tiers of stone bunding on the river-front
below, all in an unusually good state of preservation.
Built out of the reach of the summer floods, the foundations
of its walls are a good hundred feet above our boat, and
the wide sandy slope between is green and yellow with
wheat and rape-seed, the latter now in flower, and which
will shortly all be reaped before the water rises. At the foot
of the bank, and along the water’s edge, is the usual winter
street of temporary, mud-plastered houses, with opium-booths,
tea, and other shops, for the needs of the boat population.
In one is a fearful din of gongs and drums going on, making
night hideous as I write, which I am informed is a grand
“‘chin-chin joss pigeon,” a favourite function for the benefit
of one of the inmates reported sick unto death.

Five miles below Kwei-fu, perched up on the cliff that
forms the: left portal of the Bellows Gorge—Méng-liang’s
Cliff forming the right portal, going down-stream—is a fine

86 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

temple, with gardens and courtyards adorned by handsome
stone pavilions, commanding magnificent views in all
directions, which marks the site of the old city of Pai-ti
Chéng. Pai-ti Chéng, or “Stronghold of the White
Emperor,” was a famous place in the days of the warring
kingdoms, and its ruined walls are still traceable.

i) ae

CHAPTER V.

IN SZECHUAN.

The customs at Kwei-chow—Transit passes—Their effect on the
provincial officialh—The drought—Anthracite at Kwei-chow—
Visit to a mandarin—A concert—Management of the junks.

KwEI-cHow-Fu, or, for short, Kwei-fu or Kwei-hwan (ze.
“The Kwei-chow Barrier”), as it is more commonly called,
is the great Li-kin “barrier,” which taxes all the trade
passing by the Yang-tse route between the “ Four-streams ”
province, with its population of 40,000,000, and its fertile
territory of 200,000 square miles, and Eastern China. The
local Li-kin office, or custom-house, used formerly to be, next
to that of Canton, the most valuable post of the kind in the
empire. The transit tax averages about five per cent. on
the value of the goods, which are all carefully examined by
gaugers attached to the Ya-men, whereby a delay of three
or four days is entailed on every junk passing up or down,
their number amounting in the year to over 10,000. Hence,
although situated in a poor, mountain district, a large popu-
lation finds subsistence, and the town is studded with the
numerous mansions of the wealthy officials and their depen-
dents. These customs form the main source of revenue of
the Szechuan province, the land-tax having been reduced to
an almost nominal sum in order to attract immigrants after
its depopulation at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and
having been never since increased. But now a blight has

88 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

fallen over the place, due to the machinations of the
intruding foreigner, who has insisted upon opening a new
treaty port at Chung-king, whereby all imports are now
admitted into the heart of Szechuan upon payment of one
single import duty in Shanghai. The unfortunate Szechuan
officials fought as hard as they could against the innovation,
which in this decentralized land meant nothing else than
their total ruin, but in vain. A few junks carrying local
merchandise, and so unprovided with “foreign” customs’
passes, still pay Li-kin duties on the spot, as also. the salt
junks, this trade being a government monopoly by treaty.
The result is to replenish the Imperial coffers at the cost of
the local authorities, which latter pay a fixed tribute to
Peking, retaining the balance of whatever they may collect
for their own benefit. Thus, the revenue of Kwei-chow,
formerly estimated at 2000 taels a day, is being gradually
reduced to wiZ: the central government, whose expenditure
in relation to the size and resources of the empire was smaller
than that of any other civilized state, is now draining the
provinces in a way diametrically opposed to the genius of
the Chinese constitution, and one cannot wonder at the
consequent hostility of the provincial authorities to foreign
intercourse. These provincial officials, deprived of their
perquisites, their salaries being purely nominal, have to
resort to all kinds of oppressive devices to make up their
incomes. What the eventual result of our thus forcibly
strengthening the Imperial Government at the expense of
the provinces will be, remains to be seen. At present it
acts in favour of supporting the Foreign Customs Service,
as only by means of foreign officials in the Chinese service,
backed as these are by outside foreign influence, can the
system be maintained in the face of the persistent and
natural opposition of the provincial governments. It is true

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Kwet-chow Fu 89

that a certain proportion of the revenues thus collected at
the foreign customs is handed back to the provincial
governors; but the amount is nothing compared to the
revenues obtained by them when the taxation lay exclusively
in their hands. One thing is certain, viz. that, until some
arrangement is made more favourable to the local officials,
we shall ‘never see mining and other enterprises willingly
thrown open to foreigners, and the illimitable resources of
this rich empire properly developed. The same obstacle
hinders the introduction of railways and all the other
elements of Western progress.

Upon ascending the Kwei-chow bank, the mountains
behind the hills, that form the opposite shore, become
visible. The high peaks in the rear appeared to be of the
same white formation which puzzled me in the Ichang Gorge.
Like all the mountains bordering the river, they range from
two to three thousand feet, and the stream appears to have
forced its way through the hard limestone mountains in a
direction at right angles to their main axis. What has
determined the actual course of the river cutting its way
through such cliffs as that of the Bellows Gorge, which, as
seen from Kwei-chow, looks like a slit cut with a knife across
the mountain, it is difficult to say. This whole question of
the gorges would present a most interesting problem to a
competent geologist for study on the spot. Probably, when
the Szechuan basin was filled by a vast inland lake, the
water found an outlet to the sea by cutting its way down, in
the course of zons, through the rocks of least resistance.

Distance (Lao-ta’s reckoning, as usual), ninety-five li; say,
twenty-four miles, making, in all, from Ichang to Kwei-chow,
146 miles.

This total I believe to be nearer the mark than Blakiston’s
estimate of 102 miles, I hardly think that Blakiston has

90 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

allowed enough for the constant turns and angles in the
gorges ; his chart certainly merely gives the general direction.
The difference in longitude is one degree, thirty-five minutes,
or nearly roo statute miles, besides a difference of twenty
minutes in latitude.

Sunday, March 25th (Easter Sunday).—Moored all day
at Kwei-chow-fu, waiting for a clearance. Having two
larger junks coming up behind laden with goods under
transit pass, besides purposing to despatch others downward
from Chung-king, it was advisable I should call on the
authorities and make myself known. At ten o'clock I
accordingly set out in a chair with three bearers, and pro-
ceeded to make my visits, attended by my Shansi guide
carrying my cards (Chinese, on red paper) in a leather port-
folio. The south gate, below which we lay moored, was
closed on account of the drought, no rain having fallen for
the past six months, This shutting the south gate of a city
would seem to be a kind of silent protest—made in accord-
ance with the Nature-worship, which appears to be the only
real, indigenous, and universal religion of the Chinese—
against the south, which is the fire quarter, and the presiding
influence over heat and ‘drought. Thus, when Auster blows
against the south gate and finds it shut, a hint is supposed
to be given to him that his presence is de ¢rof. We crossed
the sloping sandbank, and ascended by a long flight of
steps to the west gate. On this sandbank were scattered
manufactories of prepared fuel, such as is seen in the
cottages of South Wales, made by kneading up the coal-dust
with clay. Junks were loading this, together with anthracite
coal in big lumps for Shasze, it being used there by the
blacksmiths in preference to the local Hunan coal. When
steamers run upon the Upper Yang-tse, this will be the
coaling-station, after they have exhausted their bunkers

Drought and its Remedy gI

climbing up the arduous 150 miles between this and Ichang.
Very fair anthracite can be bought here for ten shillings
aton. The coal comes down a small affluent (again called
Siao Ho, ze. the Lesser River), which enters through a glen
to the south side of the city, and the stony moraine of which
forms the big spit, that creates the slack water and also the
harbour or anchorage of Kwei-chow, precisely analogous to
that formed by the Siao Ho at Wushan. Entering the
winding passage through the city walls, jostled by the usual
crowd of water-carriers, who make the long, steep journey
from the river into the houses in the city, laden with two
buckets of water, for five cash (one farthing), the crowded
passage narrowed still more by a double row of pork
butchers’ and hucksters’ stalls, leaving barely room for a
single sedan-chair to pass, we turned to the right, and then
mounted up another flight of steps to the top of the city wall.
This turned out to be just upona level with that of the
rising ground behind. For this reason, and being beautifully
paved with large sandstone blocks, it forms a busy thorough-
fare, protected on the river-side by the usual crenelated
battlements, the whole forming a handsome esplanade, with
a view of the winding stream below, until it is lost to sight
behind the majestic portals of the Feng-hsiang Gorge.

The streets of Kwei-chow-fu are broad, and the houses
more spacious than on the east side of the mountains, but
the shops are poor, and the place shows unmistakable signs
of rapidly progressing decay. Add to this the destitution
caused throughout the -prefecture by the total failure of the
winter crops, and we can sympathize with the unfortunate
mandarins whose sins are responsible for the misery sent
by Heaven upon the people, and who are now engaged in
humbling themselves and praying for rain. Hence, only the
official deputed to manage foreign affairs, Yang wu sze, was

92 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

open to an interview. This gentleman, known as Wang sze
Ta Jen, ze. Wang, the Fourth Excellency, received me very
politely ; but after the customary ceremonious compliments
had passed, and we were duly seated on the dais at the head
of the reception-hall—the cynosure of the ragged crowd
who never seem to be refused admission—the poor old
gentleman seemed so discomfited at the barbarian irruption,
that I truly pitied him. And, indeed, much as one may
abuse the mandarinate in general, it is the system more than
the individuals—mostly kindly, well-meaning men—which
isto blame. And as all the responsibility of any hitch in
dealing with the aggressive, unscrupulous foreigner devolves
upon the local official concerned, while his duty is to oppose
a non possumus to every request, he stands between two
fires, and his life is not a happy one. At length, having got
through the regulation business, we sipped our tea—the
conventional sign that the interview is at an end—and I
took my departure, greatly to his Excellency’s relief. Being
a Hunan man, his pazois was difficult to understand, even
had he been conversationally inclined. The Tao-tai’s yamen
still bore the traces of ancient grandeur, court above court
rising by successive flights of steps, each courtyard adorned
with two superb Hoang-ko trees, but the buildings looked like
those ofa deserted ruin. The Hsien’s or Magistrate’s ya-men
was equally ruinous, but in no way deserted. A large, dirty
crowd, including three cadaverous-looking wretches with big,
square cangues (wooden collars, three feet square) round
their necks, which seem to trouble their neighbours more
than the occupants, surrounded my chair, until I ordered my
coolies to make a dash and get clear of them. But the
absence of any rude remark, such as one is inevitably
greeted with in the east of China, was surprisingly noticeable.

Upon returning, I found an altercation going on on board

Flower Boats and Singing Girls 93

my boat between the Lao-ta and the li-kin officials. The
former wanted to escape paying tonnage dues, on the ground
that he was conveying a foreign Excellency. Instead of
frightening the officers away, as he had expected me to do,
I ordered him to pay, the amount on this small boat being
700 cash, or about three shillings. The day was hot and
close—8o° in the shade—and though thick clouds, to the
joy of the crowd, gathered round at sunset, not a drop of
rain fell, the clouds melting away completely, as the full
moon rose behind the mountains.

Owing to the drought, a strict fast had been proclaimed
throughout the district, and the beef I had been expecting
to buy here, let alone pork or fowls, was unobtainable.
I had calculated upon replenishing my stores with the
rich products of Szechuan, but got nothing but a few
eggs at four times the usual cost. These, with rice
and coarse cabbage, will form our daily food until we
leave the drought country. The harbour here is gay
with flower-boats and singing-girls. The boats in which
these latter live ply up and down in the rear of the long
tier of junks tied to the bank, and our evening was en-
livened by my Chinese having engaged one of them, which
was now moored under our stern. It was a picturesque
scene, with the moon rising over the gorge, the black, rugged
outlines ‘of the mountains opposite sharp-cut against the
illuminated sky. The sing-song boat was a sampan, with
a steeply-arched awning amidships, and with the big sweep
used in these parts hanging over the high-peaked stern
instead ‘of a rudder. In the arch of the mat, lit by a big
paper lantern on one side, sat two gaudily-dressed, pretty-
looking girls, aged respectively ten and thirteen years, and
behind them an old man of eighty, playing the fiddle. The
two girls sang in a high falsetto, one accompanying cn the

94 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

guitar, while a second man in the bows beat time with a big
pair of bamboo castanettes in his left, and a drum-stick in
his right hand. With this latter he hammered away upon a
drum on his knees, which consisted simply of a section of
a colossal bamboo, made at one of its joints. One hundred
cash (fourpence) was the cost of the entertainment, and for this
we were allowed to select three pieces from a long répertoire
tastefully inscribed upon an extended fan. Barring the
hideous accompaniment, the singing was not inharmonious,

Monday, March 26th,—While delayed at Kwei-chow-fu,
I watched the big junks towing slowly round the flat boulder-
point below the city, above which is the quiet bay in which
we are moored, The lively cry of the trackers rings in my
ears, and will always be associated in my mind with the
rapids of the Upper Yang-tse. This cry is “ Chor-chor,”
said to mean “Shang-chia,” or, “‘ Put your shoulder to it,”
“it” being the line which is slung over the shoulder of
each tracker, and attached to the quarter-mile-long tow-
rope of plaited bamboo by a hitch, which can be in-
stantaneously cast off and rehitched. The trackers mark
time with this cry, swinging their arms to and fro at
each short step, their bodies bent forward, so that their
fingers almost touch the ground. When coming into a
station like this, the long, thick tow-line is coiled up on
the bank as the trackers advance, each man promptly casting
off his own hitch as he gets to the front, and running back
to take up his place and hitch on again in the rear. Eighty
or a hundred men make a tremendous noise at this work,
almost drowning the roar of the rapid,‘ and often half a
dozen junks’ crews are towing like this, one behind the
other, From the solemn stillness of the gorge to the lively
commotion of a rapid, the contrast is most striking.

The larger junks are all accompanied by a tender, to land

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Sienalling by Beat of Drum 95

the trackers and the tow-line, which in inaccessible places
is taken on by the tender and made fast to a rock ahead,
and hauled on by the crew on board the junk. Many of
these tenders are fine vessels, forty feet long, eight feet
broad, and four feet deep. A mast forty feet high, and
rising in the form of shears from each gunwale, carries a
huge square lug-sail with a heavy wooden yard, and a boom
of bamboo at the foot, round which the sail is furled, and
which then stands perpendicularly up and down the mast.
The wind being almost constantly up-stream, this big sail,
which can only be set when the wind is directly aft, sends
the tight boat along flying. On the Chuan Ho, the Szechuan
river, or Upper Yang-tse, only two winds are known by the
boatmen—the “Shang féng,” or “up wind;” and the “ Hia
féng,” or, “down wind.”

Meanwhile, the drummer-man on board the big junk
drums away as hard as he can, as a signal to the trackers to
exert their utmost force, alternating with a rum-ti-tum, rum-
ti-tum—the signal to cease hauling. Away from the rapids
the river seems deserted ; the surroundings are on such a grand
scale that the scattered junks are lost, and in such a spot one
would be led to believe that there was no traffic on the river
at all. The high-water marks, far away above the masts of
the largest junks, and which at a distance appear to be only
a few feet above the river level, add to the deception. At
K.wei-chow these are fully 100 feet high, and in exceptional
years the water, dammed up by the narrow gorges below,
rises many tens of feet higher. The order, discipline, and
promptness displayed by the crews on the Chuan Ho is a
striking contrast to the lax way in which, in other parts of
China, bodies of workmen seem all to be giving orders
together.

Our progress to-day was through a succession of eddies

96 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

and small rapids. In the words of Tennyson (slightly
altered), “‘ The rapid runs by every rocky point,” and it was
a constant succession of jumping out to haul us up by main
force round these points, and in again to paddle the boat up
the eddies. This work culminated in the fierce rapid of
Lao-ma (“Old Horse”), at which we were detained some
time, waiting our turn to get through, while the Ting-chai,
my official conductor, jumped ashore in his official hat, and
pressed extra trackers into our service, not one of whom
would have received a cash but for my insistence.

I delayed the boat nearly an hour to-day through being
unable to keep up with the trackers. The shore was a pile
of broken rocks of all sizes, over which they with the tow-
line hopped like cats, while I toiled painfully along bathed
in perspiration, though clad in nothing but a pair of flannel
trousers and a shirt. Somehow I lost the beach, and gradu-
ally ascended until I struck a mountain-path five or six
hundred feet above. I crawled along this until in view of
the precipice below me, and, the path getting almost too
narrow for foothold, I came toa stop. The view from this
height was very imposing. George Sand discusses some-
where the relative charm of a river gulch viewed from below
and from above, and, I think, decides in favour of the
former. To me, however, the view from about halfway up
is the most striking: the size is then better appreciated.
This valley is highly cultivated, and the mountains are as
gay with the colours of the different crops as a patched
quilt. To conclude: the crew spotted me in my white
flannels wandering aloft, and one of them climbed up and
put me in the right path, and brought me down in safety.

Distance, seventy-five li; say, eighteen miles, making
total from Ichang, 164 miles, One month out from
Hankow.

The Miao Chi-tse and Tung Vang Rapids 9%

Tuesday, March 27th.—The crew roused me at five, as
usual, With the first glimpse of dawn, the night-mat and
awning framework having been stowed away meanwhile, we
started, rowing up a long eddy: the valley still narrowed
to the river-bed, almost steep enough to be called a gorge.
Very little cultivation, the hills being strewn with rocks,
which, where fallen into the river, formed points and con-
sequent rapids: the strata are mainly of sandstone and
horizontal; the current four to five knots. We passed the
minor rapid of Miao chi-tse (Temple Stairs), the water
rushing over a succession of rock steps with, however, a
clear channel, but an eight-knot current in mid-stream.
Here a local passenger-boat discharged its fares to walk
over the boulders, while it was being hauled up the rapid
empty; and it was characteristic to, see the men run down
the landing-plank, leaving the women, with their hideous,
crippled feet, to get along as best they could. The babies
were taken ashore and carried round the rapid, strapped to
the backs of boys. Shortly afterwards we pulled up at the
foot of a foaming cataract, called Tung yang tse. An eddy
rushing up to this, and tumbling over the rocks with little
less fury than the main stream, brought us up at a run, and
it needed two stoppered bamboos to fend the boat off the
rocks, upon which I alighted with the trackers,

This rapid is interesting, as showing what many other
rapids need, an attempt at artificial improvement. The
rapid is formed, on one side, by a ledge of solid rock jutting
out from the mountains on the left bank ; and, on the other
side, by a huge cone of dejection, consisting of gigantic
boulders, the débris brought down by a small affluent, at
this season little more than a brook, running through a cleft
in the hills opposite. Its mouth is diverted by a great
barrier of neatly morticed stones, with a paved summit

H

98 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

some fifty feet wide. This is built on to and below the
rock ledges, and diverts the stream into the whirlpool below
the rapid. On its face is a fine stone tablet, which has
engraved on it the four characters, “‘ Yung ching ngan lan”
—‘‘To tranquillize the waters is a perpetual boon.” In
smaller characters at the side, we are informed that the
tranquillization was effected in the seventh year of Tung-chih,
or just thirteen years ago. But, alas! for the perpetuity
of modern Chinese work! The lower end is already
partially washed away; and the centre, instead of being
constructed of modern masonry, is filled up with loose rocks,
offering a convenient hold for the current to work upon.
Masses of white sand everywhere intermingle with, and in
many places entirely smooth over, the rugged rocks. The
river continues to vary from three to six hundred yards in
width. Above the Tung yang tse, or Temple of the
Eastern Ocean, the left bank recedes, yielding room for a
few green slopes and picturesque, tree-embosomed villages.
Shortly afterwards, 1500 feet up omthe right bank, appeared
a white pagoda, the portal to the walled city of ‘‘ Yun-yang
hsien,” five miles off, higher up.

Yun-yang hsien, or Clouded Sun City, is situated on the
left bank of a picturesque gorge formed. by - pyramidal
mountains, horizontally stratified, and 1000 to 1500 feet in
height. Its walls run along the.river 100 feet or more
above the present level, and, as usual, extend some distance
up the mountain, on the’slope of which it is built. The
mountain crest itself is crowned by an additional mud wall,
and the summit is surrounded by a ruined castle or fort—
all of which proved of little value as a defence against the
local rebels or Tu-fei, who, in conjunction with a roving
band of Tai-pings, devastated all this country in the early
sixties,

96 ‘J aon o7 | ‘SSOIC 9S9UIYD Ul JOYyINY ay) Yay ayy uQ = *jJaa,q OS Jo
yidag & 0) paiaa0o punoasaiog ‘aug Ul ‘JaAa’T JojULAA ‘Suefungy aysoddo ‘giduay s taj-3ueyD

Yun-yang: Chang-fer's Temple 99

In the city and suburb, which has little trade, are several
imposing temples—one, the “ Wan sho kung,” or “ Temple
of Longevity,” has a highly decorated front wall, with inlaid
bronze tablets, the most conspicuous bearing the inscrip-
tion, “Hsien li tsung,” de ‘Genii recorder bequeath
footsteps ”—a phrase, like most of those adorning temples,
having little meaning except to those versed in Bhuddist
and Taoist lore. But, on the opposite side of the river, on
a picturesque cliff backed by wooded hills—such a spot as
in the United States would be selected for an advertisement
of “Smith’s Liver Pad,” or ‘ Jones’s Liniment,”—our atten-
tion is drawn to a colossal inscription in those elegant
Chinese characters, which are a decoration in themselves, of
the four words, “ Ling tsung chien ku,” z.e. “‘ Ethereal bell
one thousand ages.” When a fire breaks out in the district,
this magic bell rings of its own accord. Immediately above
this rock inscription stands a gay-looking range of buildings
comprising a temple, dedicated to the hero-saint, Chang-fei,
a pork butcher who died fighting for his country in the wars
of the “ three kingdoms.”

The temple is solidly built, in splendid repair, and
gorgeously decorated ; it comprises three courts and a two-
storied pavilion, extending along the river-front. On one
side is a handsome stone bridge, looking up which is seen a
waterfall, which comes down a steep, narrow glen, the whole
forming a scene which would make as pretty a picture of
Eastern scenery as I have ever seen. We are moored on
the opposite bank, waiting for the new Chai-jen (official
messenger), who is to accompany and pass us on to the
next district city, Wan Hsien ; and I take advantage of the
enforced delay to cross over in a ferry-boat and visit the
place. We climbed up the almost perpendicular rock until
we reached a flight of about a hundred stone steps, which

100 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

landed us at the door of the temple, looking westward
across the bridge. The walls are of brick on stone
foundation, as usual, the superstructure supported on
morticed wooden columns. One of the ‘courts we found
filled with well-dressed women, comprising apparently the
rank and fashion of the city of the ‘“ Clouded Sun.” They
were about fifty in number, and had just feasted, and were
now playing cards and dominoes, seated in parties round
the usual square tables. They are all stump-footed, but
healthy-looking, and, though curious to see him, are not at
all put out by the irruption of a tall barbarian in a flannel
suit, on his head a bath-towel twisted into a huge but grace-
ful turban (the only really effective sun-shade). The priest,
an unusually polished Chinaman, showed me round, and
told me that this new temple replaces an old. temple
washed away in the terrible flood of 1870, when the water
rose to a level with the present roof—nearly 200 feet above
the actual low-water level. This rebuilding cost 10,000
taels, about £1500, being little more than half what such a
work would cost at Shanghai.

Wednesday, March 28th.—The sun’s heat in the morning is
intense. I go ashore to enjoy the morning air, and get
violently heated in scrambling over the precipitous towing-
paths. Up to noon it is dead calm; then the up-river
breeze gradually rises, and a chilling gale is upon you
before you are hardly aware of the change. This regular
easterly breeze, which sets in daily after the sun has gained
power, is invaluable to the crude native crafts which navigate
this river. In many long stretches the cliffs are vertical
and no towing-path exists, so that without a fair wind they
would never get up at all.

Such was my experience to-day, after a long morning’s
walk over a succession of rocky points and intervening

Gorge of the Eight Cliffs 101

sand-hills, the former looking as though but yesterday a
cartload of Brobdignagian paving-stones, varying in size
from a house to a dog-kennel, had tbeen shunted off the
mountain ridge behind. I was recalled to the boat as we
were entering the “ Pa ngai hsia,” or “Gorge of the Eight
Cliffs.” This is a bed of hard grey sandstone, through
which the river has cut itself an even channel about 300
yards in width, and thirty li—say, six miles—in length. The
cliffs are perpendicular, fluted by innumerable “ pot-holes,”
and generally worn into rugged, fantastic outlines. The
gorge sweeps round in a curve, the stream entering it with
an easterly, and leaving it with a northerly course. "My
boatman informed me that the gorge had no bottom. At
top the cliff extends an almost level surface of one to two
hundred yards, to the feet of the broken mountains which
rise from and behind it. The summit of the cliffs is only
forty feet above the present level, and in the summer rise
they are entirely hidden, the water then reaching to the
bordering mountains. At such a time the down-going junks
are indebted alone to the force of the current for keeping
them in the channel.

This curious gorge terminates in a wide ridge of the
same formation, of the same height, and with the same level
top; but instead of one grand channel, the river finds its
way through it in five small ones, All through this gorge
a chilling wind blew, and I caught a severe cold. We had
four men to tow along the top of the now dry cliff, with
one following behind to clear the tow-line—no easy task, as
it implies climbing to the edge of the slippery rocks.
Rounding one of the projecting points we again met with
the mishap known as “ Ta chang,” ze. “ break adrift,” but
which I should rather translate, “ taking charge.” I was, as
at all difficult places, lying in the central hold under the

102 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

mats, so as to leave the limited deck space clear for the
“ Tai-kung ” (lit., “Great Work,” ze. “ Bow-man”). He was
busy sounding ahead, and poling the boat’s head off the
rocks, when suddenly I heard the ominous cry, “ Ta-chang!”
felt the boat heel over, and looked out to see how soon the
trackers would cast off, as she was taking a sheer in the
current, which, unless something gave way, must end in
our immediate capsize. Fortunately, the bamboo tow-
line was cut by the rock and gave way, and we went
careering down stream again at the rate of six miles an
hour. In this there was no danger from rocks, the
channels throughout all the gorges being perfectly clear ;
but we managed to collide with a small junk towing
astern of us, and lost our flagstaff and the house-flag, which
I was proudly displaying for the first time on the Upper
Yang-tse.

At the entrance to the gorge, on the left bank, are carved
three josses, painted and gilt in full canonicals: they are
called “Shui fu san wan,” or “the Three Guardians of the
Water.” Our boatmen informed me that they only “ Kwan”
the river by day, and are off duty at night, and that therefore
no good boatmen move in the dark. On the opposite rock
wall is carved a “ Pai Fang,” or triumphal arch. Of course,
josses and all undergo a long annual submersion in the
summer floods. Below and above this gorge are boulder
and shingle-covered spits, upon which gold-washing was
being carried on in a most methodical manner ; but I could
not find out that any of the cradles I visited! had found any
gold that day, and I imagine the gleaning here must be
infinitesimal. After being towed through several small,
shallow rapids, and constantly grounded on submerged gold -
digger’s spoil-heaps, we moored for the night a few miles
below the celebrated city of Wan.

The City of “ Wan” 103

Distance, 110 li, equal to twenty-seven miles ; total from
Ichang, 223 miles.

Thursday, March 29th.—Still the same picturesque moun-
tains and clear river, winding amongst sand-flats and gravel-
banks, I landed after early coffee, and soon walked ahead
of the trackers, At length I came to a pebble-covered
point, to pass which the boat would have to make a long
round, while I descried a fine, straight path across its neck,
which I followed. On mounting the bank, I saw a white
pagoda, a thousand feet above the river, on the apex of one
of the many pyramidal hills scattered about, which announced
the approach to a city. Further on and lower down, a
second pagoda, similarly placed, also white and of nine
stories, perfects the Feng-shui. The bank of pebbles I
was crossing, and which is called ‘ Hung sha chi,” or “ Red
Sand Point,” seemed endless; and, on asking, I was told it was
ten li across: I should judge it to be over two miles. The
river-bed is here one mile wide, the present stream being
about 4oo yards. Just below the town the bed narrows,
and, passing through a short gorge, enters the Valley of Wan.
Wan means myriad. Overlooking the gorge is a handsome
temple, called “Chung-ku lo” (“Drum and Bell Lodge”), with
a three-storied pavilion surmounting its stage, the platform
upon which strolling companies perform in honour of the
gods ; the whole place well built and remarkably clean.
From this terrace, in front, is a fine view of the city and the
busy port below.

“ Wan hsien,” “The Myriad” city, is situated in the
midst of a rich and beautiful country, and is the first fair
specimen of a Szechuan city we have come to. It faces
south and east, and looks down two reaches of the river,
which here again, owing to the horizontal stratification and
vertical cleavage of the mountains through which it has

104 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

forced its way, makes a sharp rectangular turn, compelling
us to change our course from west to south. We are now
in latitude 30° 57’, the highest northing since leaving
Ichang (latitude 10° 41'), and from here our general course
is south-west, Chung-king being in latitude 29° 33'
(Blakiston), The agricultural land here is formed of the
talus of sandstone hills, from the midst of which the
picturesque, vertical, flat-topped peaks still peep out. These
peaks rise from seven to fifteen hundred feet (and in the
distance higher), and are evidently the remnants of a once
solid range. They are of all sizes, from a few yards to
as many miles in width. On the steep slopes, which in
places almost reach to the summits, wherever the angle is
not more than 30°, grow wheat, barley, rape, beans, and
poppy; the former now in full ear, the latter in flower.
The poppy, which I now see cultivated for the first time,
is a solid-looking, substantial, dark-green plant, with
white, pink and white, and purple flowers, three to four feet
in height, springing from well earthed-up ridges, like celery.
The harvest is collected in April, by making a sharp
incision in the stem, below the capsules overnight, and
scraping off the white, escaped sap in the morning; after
which it is pulled up, and the plant given to the pigs, and
its place is taken by maize or cotton. The valuable Tung,
or varnish-tree, from the seed of which is pressed the
famous Tung-you (tung varnish), also yields an important
article of trade in this flourishing city, the surrounding
mountains being covered in places with its dark-green
foliage.

The “ Feng-shui” of Wan is perfect. A distant range
protects it from the evil influences of the “ Yin” (Darkness,
ze. North). A curtain of lower hills on the opposite bank
screens it from the south, yet without hindering, by their

A Perfect “ Féng-shur” 105

height, the benignant influx of the genial south (“ Yang,” ze.
Light). A smooth point of rock juts out into the river just
above the city, and constitutes the “ Lung” (Dragon), without
whose presence no site is complete. This bank, rising land-
wards, is crowned by a three-storied “ Ting-tsze” (pavilion),
which overlooks the city and commands a charming prospect.
This protruding dragon checks the current and makes a
smooth bight behind, in which moor the large fleet of junks
that frequent this busy place—a characteristic Szechuan town.
Situated on a bend, the descending river pours its wealth
into the arms of Wan, before which it halts for a while ere
pursuing its onward course. But lest when leaving the city
in its downward course it should carry away too rapidly the
gifts it has brought down, not only is it checked by the
natural gorge below, but on the jutting points, which here
keep the river back, the Feng-shui is perfected by a couple
of pagodas and the elegant ‘‘ Chung-ku lo !”

Apart, however, from all these fanciful, yet poetical,
advantages—which were kindly pointed out to me by an
enthusiastic old gentleman, a big junk-master and owner,
who volunteered as my guide in an evening stroll—the
extraordinary way in which the peculiar sandstone hills are
broken up gives an unique appearance to a landscape, which
once seen is never forgotten. I would advise all tourists to
the rapids not to stop at Kweli, but to extend their trip two
days further to the lovely Vale of Wan.

A river, now almost dry, winding through steep banks,
divides the small, walled city from the extensive suburb
above it, and is crossed by a semi-circular bridge with no
visible abutments, giving it the appearance of a bent bow,
the highest and most elegant structure of the kind I have yet
seen. Down this stream comes the “Hwang piao tsz’,” a
yellow paper, manufactured from macerated bamboos, for

106 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

which there is an unlimited demand throughout the empire
for the manufacture of spills, for the universal hubble-bubble,
as well as for the piles of paper “cash” burnt at tombs,
which are a speciality of this district. Many of the large
Szechuan junks which carry on the transit, over the rapids
are built here, of a tough cypress which grows plentifully on
all the hills hereabouts. The planking is only an inch thick,
and they are all clamped together in the usual way, the
object being to leave them “limber” and to combine
strength with lightness. A junk to carry 200 bales of
shirting up-stream—say, forty tons dead weight—costs here,
new, complete, a thousand strings of cash, or £110.

Distance, forty-five li (eleven miles); total from Ichang,
234 miles.

( 107 )

CHAPTER VI.
ON TO CHUNG-KING.

Iron workers—Census taking—Site of old Chung-chow—A rain-
bringing opera—Deforesting of the country—Feng-tu—The temple
of the Chinese Pluto—Fu-chow—Chang-chow—First sight of
Chung-king.

AFTER departing from the city of Wan, we journeyed on
through a beautiful country, the sandstone mountains eroded
into marvellously romantic outlines. On the left bank a
range of the same picturesque hills, about 800 feet high, and
in many reaches too steep for cultivation. On the right
bank rise gentle ranges of from four to five hundred feet,
cultivated to the summit, and backed by mountains rising to
2000 feet, The air is balmy in the bright morning sunshine
with the odour of the rape and bean, now in full flower; the
water is pellucid, and flows with a smooth current of from
two to three knots, except where it is intercepted by and
rushes round the numerous rocky points, which at intervals
contract the channel when it flows at double this speed.
I mounted up to one of the villages, which are mostly
situated at 200 feet above the present level, safe from the
summer floods. This, like many others, is built astride a
steep glen filled with tall cypress, and is called “Tung
tsz’yu’rh,” or “ Dryanda Garden.” Avsteep flight of steps, the
lower portion neatly cut in the solid rock, leads up about a
thousand feet through this prettily terraced hamlet. Leaving

108 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Dryanda village embowered in its rich spring foliage and
flowers, we passed up the “Fuh t’an,” a rapid formed by
immense masses of projecting rocks, but dangerous only in
the summer floods. The sun was most oppressive, and at
ten o’clock I returned to the boat, and sat there in pyjamas
till sunset, when I got another hour’s walk across one of the
interminable boulder banks which are the common feature
of this section of the river. All these spits are covered with
the deserted piles of stones left by the gold-washers who have
been driven off by the rising water. Brought up at seven
p.m. at Wu-ling chi, a steep point, on which is a busy town
of blacksmiths, working Yun-Yang iron with excellent local,
bituminous coal. Forest fires were visible on a distant range.

Distance run, ninety li (twenty-two miles); total, 256
miles.

Saturday, March 31st.—Our voyage continued through
beautiful and characteristic Szechuan scenery. Steep, culti-
vated hills, well wooded round the villages, flat-topped sand-
stone cliffs forming their summits; the wheat, barley, rape,
and poppy fields covering the talus. At their foot lie big
rocks, the déé77s of these ancient mountains, which obstruct
the river channel and form a succession of small rapids, the
average speed of the current being barely four knots. Behind
the hills on the right bank runs a range of mountains of
about 5000 feet, of even height, and, from their appearance,
probably of limestone, in a direct line N.N.E. and S.S.W.,
like all the main ranges through which the river forces its
way between this and Ichang. The windings of the river
among the sandstone hills now approach, now recede, from
this range, through which it cuts its way in the gorge below
Wan Hsien. I landed early, and walked across one of the
interminable, boulder-covered flats which here alternate with
the sandbanks, sprinkled with great, angular, unrolled rocks,

The Rock “ Shth Pao Chai” 109

all, however, under water in summer. At noon, passed a
remarkable and picturesque rock, called ‘Shih Pao chai,”
or “ Stone Precious Castle.” This rock rises a hundred feet
from its talus in perpendicular cliffs, its summit being flat and
of about two hundred feet by fifty—just sufficient space for
a temple of three courts which covers it. The talus rises
steep from the river for 200 feet, making the height of the
whole about 300 feet. Against the south-east face is built
a nine-storied pavilion, about sixty feet wide at the base,
springing from a handsome temple built of wood, with a
projecting, curved, pagoda-like roof extending from each
story. This forms the ascent to the rock above. On this,
again, is built a two-storied pavilion, the whole, when seen
end on, appearing like a huge eleven-storied pagoda. At
its foot is a village, at which it was market-day, and the
crowd, in the white turbans common in Szechuan, and in
their long blue gowns, looked uncommonly smart and un-
Chinese. I saw here, for the first time during my many
years’ travel in China, men with red staves in their hands,
and with large shields slung across their backs, called “‘ Men
Pai” (Door Shields), meaning “ Census,” and reminding one
of our sandwich-men. They are engaged in numbering the
people (or rather the houses), a custom apparently more
honoured in this orderly province than elsewhere. We
passed on until we came to a reach, where the native rocks
have got the better of the river, which forces its way through
them in intricate channels with a deafening roar, the bed
being here nearly a mile wide. We made here one of our
many daily crossings, in which we usually lose a mile of our
hardly-earned vantage. This is a dangerous crossing, and
a life-boat is stationed here. Only an accurate knowledge
of the eddies enabled our men to cross the rushing waters in
safety. We regained a good lot of our lost ground by the

110 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

men suddenly ceasing their vigorous rowing, jumping out
with the tow-line, and tracking us up to the head of one of
the rocks, when we began again our involuntary descent,
until-we reached an eddy on the opposite bank, up which
we rowed in peace. All these rocks are perfectly level,
having been originally all one piece, through which the
river has carved out an infinity of channels, are of the same
height, and are covered in summer, Above this stretches
another extensive, flat, rocky point, until we come to a basin
some four miles by six, in the centre of which is a steep,
beautifully-wooded island of the same height as the banks
(about five hundred feet), with the two thousand feet
mountains immediately behind. This is called “Hoa Hoa
Chen ” (“ Flowery Walls”), and is the ancient site of Chung-
chow, the city at which we are due to-morrow, and which
is now situated ten miles higher up. The site of the old
city was changed to that of the modern one owing to a
parricide which occurred there—a noteworthy custom of
ancient times, the unfilial spot being razed level with the
earth,

A curious legend is attached to the “Shih pao chai.”
Formerly this remarkable rock possessed a hole, from which
flowed a stream of rice sufficient for the wants of the three
priests living there. The head priest, wishing to have rice
to sell, enlarged the hole, when at once the flow of rice
ceased. Unfortunately, my boatmen would not stop to
allow me to land and verify the existence of this super-
natural opening.

Walking along the shore, a constant source of amusement
is to watch the army of trackers attached to each big junk
as they toil along, harnessed to the inexorable tow-line, over
ground, which practice alone is enabling me to get over,
armed with a big stick and comfortable boots, and choosing

flumours of the Trackers III

the easiest path at my leisure. Rounding a point where the
junk hung fire, and the trackers were giving way step by step,
notwithstanding the vociferations and blows (harmless) of
the half-dozen overseers, I saw the gang-master quietly divest
himself of his clothing, which was carefully gathered up by a
colleague, rush into the river, and then roll himself in the
sand, taking special care well to plaster his face. Then,
like a maniac, he danced, howled, tumbled, crawled on all-
fours through the ranks of the trackers, jumped at and struck
them. After having thus warmed them to their work, and
the tight place being successfully passed, he washed himself,
methodically resumed his clothing, and became restored to
his senses. Ata distance, a group of these trackers on all
fours, howling and bellowing like cattle, and surrounded by
six or eight overseers walking erect and belabouring their
men with split bamboos—which make more noise than
hurt—has all the appearance of a drove of donkeys being
forced along a difficult path, the junk itself, the cords de
délit, being generally out of sight in the rear. Each of these
unfortunates gets a couple of dollars, besides his rice, for
his two months’ arduous work, and coming down-stream, he
works for his rice alone. These big junks are also a
curious sight, descending the river. The mast is unshipped
and slung alongside, the deck is covered with seventy or
eighty men with white turbans, brown, naked bodies, and blue
trousers, some working the big bow sweep; others rowing
erect, with their faces forwards; others, again, working the
gigantic oars, called the “ Che” (carriage or wheel), formed
of the trunk of a cypress, the stem in-board, each of
which takes eight or ten men to work it, The larger junks
have six or eight of these, in addition to oars and yu-loes (hugh
sculls, working screw-fashion over the stern or alongside,
parallel to the ship’s rail) ; and yet, such is the deceptive size

via Through the YVang-tse Gorges

of the gorges, I at first took these lumbering machines in the
distance to be only sampans. Each big junk, both in
ascending and descending, has a sampan in attendance, which
acts as its tender throughout the voyage. With all this
apparatus the junks barely make steerage way; and when a
dangerous place is approached, the shouting to make the
men work is terrific.

Day’s run, eighty li (twenty miles); 276 from Ichang.

Sunday, April 1st—Weather still fine and warm, with
light, south-westerly breeze. Our ragged escort was ex-
changed at Wan Hsien for a new “ despatch bearer.” From
one district city to another, the news of my progress is thus
communicated by one magistracy to the next. This is a
polite attention, happily as unnecessary in this favoured
province as it is to the traveller vexatious. These mes-
sengers have to be fed and housed, and in this small boat
we have no room to spare; and also custom demands a
present of two hundred cash for the man’s return expenses
at each stage, which at our rate of travel extends over two
days. A writer from the “ Ya-men” also comes on board,
and carefully engrosses a literal copy of my voluminous-
passport. Red tape is not confined to England. At Kwei-
fu the officials had the additional trouble of sending each
a Sze-yeh (clerk), with a card, to return my calls. The
messenger from the rich city of Wan is a great contrast to
the poor devil we received at Yun-yang. He is a dandy in
his way. Though his feet are bare, he wears most elaborate
straw sandals, in form like those of the ancients, with a blue,
rose-shaped tassel over each great toe. His underclothing
of grey shirting is scrupulously clean, and he is one of the
few natives hereabouts I have yet seen not covered with itch
sores, He made himself useful, assisting in the kitchen, our
cook proper being still laid up witha scald, I was quite sorry

Official Convoys 113

to lose him at Chung-chow, where we exchanged him for
an ordinary specimen of the Yamen-runner—a pale, sickly,
opium-smoking youth covered with sores and dirt. Not
bringing their beds, these men have to find a lodging ashore
forthe night. On inquiry, I find our itch-covered gentleman
obtained his, including use of quilt, for eight cash, or two-
fifths of a penny, while our exquisite paid just double for his.
While on the subject of official messengers, I may add that
each of the big whitey-brown envelopes enclosing the
despatches with which I am being convoyed, has stated upon
it the names in full of the two messengers deputed to deliver
it; but, Chinese-fashion, one man only is really sent: and this
man often takes the pay, and then engages some poor tramp
totake his place at one-third the pay, he pocketing the
difference. This sub-letting of contracts is reduced to a
fine art throughout China.

Early this morning, a few miles above Wu-ling Chi (Five-
mountain Point), the river takes a sharp bend to the
westward, and we turn our backs upon the high range we
have been coasting since leaving Wan Hsien, and enter the
reach in which stands, again on the left or north bank,
the district city of Chung-chow, the “loyal” city. We track
round the concave shore of this bend, where the current is
at its strongest; but the reefs of rock on the convex side,
which boats towing up usually affect, are too extensive and
scattered for even a woman of Shén to thread, at the
present low stage of the water level.

I notice here, for the first time, a properly constructed
towing-path, consisting of a stone embankment, built up
twenty feet high against the rocky cliff, so that the trackers
need not jump like goats from stone to stone, as in most
similar places. The embankment is, like all the useful public
works still extant in China, ancient and out of repair; and, of

I

114 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

course, it enters into nobody’s head to repair anything now-
adays. If youask why “the stitch in time” is not taken, you
get the same answer in each of the eighteen provinces, viz.
this: that the emperor, meaning the government, has no
money, and the old public spirit of the many wealthy
grandees seems totally to have died out. All over the
country you see scattered large houses, the homes of the
gentry, and so-called Literati. Of the buildings, you see
nothing but the four blank walls and a heavy, closed door ;
and their inmates seldom emerge, but spend their time in
selfish idleness, managing, however, their incomes with
frugality. This is the class opposed to all progress, which
stirs up the otherwise indifferent masses against the foreigner.
I confess that I loathe the bespectacled Chinaman, whenever
I meet one, with his rude stare. The civility we meet with
in travel is almost entirely confined to the lower and middle
classes.

Not long after rounding this point, we recrossed the
river, here three-quarters of a mile wide, and, tracking under
some wooded sandstone cliffs, arrived at the city of Chung-
chow, which is built immediately above them, and thus
raised on a ledge 100 to 150 feet above the river. This
city 1s remarkable for the number of temples and pavilions,
surrounded by fine trees, which give it a picturesque aspect,
apart from its beautiful setting in a steeply-sloping amphi-
theatre of groves of tall bamboo and wooded hills, The walls,
as usual, run back, and enclose a lot of waste land. Rounding
a bend above the city, the river widens out, and the hills on
either side enclose a lake-like expanse. The scene is very
beautiful. During the quarter of an hour our crew devote
to their mid-day meal, at which time the boat is moored
alongside the bank, I ascended one of the many well-nigh
endless flights of stone steps which on these steep hills

A Narrow Escape 115

lead up to the villages situated on the greater heights behind.
The path led upwards for about 400 feet, through a wood of
cypress, Tung, or wood-oil trees, poplars, and bamboos, until
on reaching the first summit, as it passed directly inland, I.
had to carefully descend by the way I had passed up. I
followed our boat along the shore, walking, as usual,
alternately in the loose sand, on boulders, or over jagged
rocks, sometimes at the water’s edge; at others, 200 feet
above it. Suddenly I heard a great outcry, and could just
distinguish the hair of a man in the water ahead of our boat.
I ran quickly down to go in after him; but before I reached
the shore our boat came up with him, and dragged him on
board half-drowned. It was one of our trackers, who, in
fording a shallow between two reefs of rocks, had got out of
his depth, and been just saved in time. I still do not
understand how he floated so long and quietly, with only
" just his hair above the surface.

It is pleasing, in contrast with the carelessness of Shanghai
boatmen, to note the careful way in which the voyageuys of
this river coil up their enormous plaited bamboo tow-lines,
with which the after part of the big junks is entirely covered,
two big additional coils being suspended over each quarter,
and another ona special raised platform over the steering-
house, of which one man has sole charge. -As the tow-line
is being constantly lengthened and shortened and frequently
changed, this entails much work on the dozen men or so
left on the junk, and the will and system with which these
men handle the bulky coils are refreshing to a yachtsman
to witness. They coil alternately in and out. We now
recrossed the river below a small rapid, on the rocky banks
of which a junk had been recently wrecked, and her cargo
was being dried, while the junk herself was careened
for repairs. This is the fifth or sixth big junk laden with

116 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

raw Shanghai cotton that we have passed in a similar
condition since leaving Ichang. Oné or two days back, at
a similar wreck, a temporary stage had been erected, in
which the “pockets” were slung while the crew were
treading down the cotton into them. After having been
fourteen hours, as usual, under way, we ultimately brought
up for the night at Vang tu chi, a large village on the right
bank, noted for its earthenware factories, where very artisti-
cally shaped vessels can be purchased at nominal prices.

After supper, it was proposed we should adjourn to the
opera, a celebrated company having come up from the city
of Wan to aid the villagers in propitiating the rain-god.
The performance was then proceeding in a temple on the
bank. Lighting a length of worn-out bamboo tow-line,
which our Tai-kung, or pilot, furnished us with, and which
made a most efficient torch, we threaded our way up the
steep sandbank and among the dirty temporary huts,
largely composed of opium dens, which in winter cover the
low ground adjoining the junks’ halting-places. We at length
entered a handsome and solidly-constructed temple ; and
there, upon the fine stage in the first courtyard, was the
usual gay scene of a Chinese historical play. The stage was
lit by two staring oil-lamps suspended from the proscenium,
reminding me of those of the London costermonger, and by
about a dozen red-wax dips. The auditorium was in
darkness. My intrusion was quickly detected by the crowd
of turbaned coolies, but I was not in the least disturbed, and
I stood looking on at some very good acting until ten
o’clock. These performances, usually of historical plays, like
Shakespeare’s, and processions in honour of the gods, if they
do not always produce rain, at least serve to educate and
amuse the people, and to divert their thoughts from their
troubles.

Deforestation and Drought 117

Day’s run, tro li. (twenty-seven miles); from Ichang,
303 miles.

Monday, April 2nd.—Heavy rain at last, in the night; a
fine warm day, with light south-westerly breeze. We started
this morning against a freshet, which had come down in the
night, and raised the river some two feet, while the current
was increased to four or five knots. We passed the rapid,
dangerous in summer, of “T’ieh men ka’rh,” or “Iron
Threshold.” A few women, not professional or mutilated
beggars, had taken up their station on the ledge, along
which all upward junks pass tracking, and begged importu-
nately. Our messenger said it was owing to poverty caused
by the four years’ drought. Is it possible that the deserts of
Central Asia, once the “ manufactory of nations,” after in-
vading Kan-su and Shan-si, the latter once the granary of
the empire, are stretching their octopus clutch towards this,
the fairest jewel in the Celestial crown? Will the reckless-
ness of the people, and the carelessness of its governors,
allow the country to decay and become obliterated, like
Nineveh and Babylon and the once flourishing cities of
Asia Minor? Or will Western influence interfere, and by
force or persuasion turn this magnificent country and its
industrious inhabitants to some real account? The de-
forestation of the hills and mountains is so marked and
persistent that the demand for fuel and building alone will
hardly explain it. Pére David believes it to be due to the
dread of wild beasts, and the consequent attempts to root
up and destroy their cover.

Turning a bend and quitting this scene, we entered a fine
straight reach, about one mile wide, and ten long, running
nearly due north and south. Both banks are formed of
gentle hills of from four to five hundred feet high, with
higher ranges behind. The bed of the river was entirely

118 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

covered, but the left bank, up which we tracked, was very
shallow, and, notwithstanding our light draft, we had to keep
out some distance from the shore. It was in this reach, on
the right bank of which is situated the market-town of
“‘Kao-chia chen”—the mart of the “Kao” family—that
Blakiston found his least depth of two fathoms. A market
was in progress, chiefly interesting from the number of cattle
—“wet” and “dry,” z.e. buffaloes and zebus—and the number
of long, blue-coated, white-turbaned Chinamen covering the
sand-slopes. The whole long valley was beautifully culti-
vated exclusively with poppy, the brilliant dark-green of
the plant, sprinkled with the white flowers, giving the hills
the appearance, in the distance, of being covered with rich
pasture, from which the sun had not yet dissipated the
morning dews. The picturesque two-storied farmhouses—
white, with dark wooden framework showing through, and
with large overhanging eaves, situated amidst the trees, now
in full leaf in every glen and on every projecting knoll, and
looking not unlike Swiss chalets—added to the charm of this
lotus-eaters home. From noon til four, in the hot spring
sunshine, our men tracked steadily up this reach, until at
its upper end, where a steep cliff on the left bank seems to
shut it in, we got entangled in a nest of rocks, and made
little progress until our mooring-time of seven pm. A
seven-storied pagoda on the right bank, modern and a sham,
having neither windows nor buddhas, but doubtless none
the less efficacious in “ Pu”-ing the Feng-shui; and the
sacred hill of “ Tien tsz’” (“Son of Heaven”) right before
us, told of our arrival at the (Chinese) world-renowned city
of “ Feng-tu.”

In this part the local passage and ferry-boats are roomy,
and possess a high, open, steeply-arched mat awning, with a
front platform for the rowers, and, in place of rudder, have

[To face p. 118.

Szechuan Poppy-field in Bloom, in Month of April.

Entrance to Hades 119

all a single gigantic stern-sweep. Walking towards Chung-
chow yesterday morning, it being market-day, numbers of
country people were making their way into the town, and
ferry-boats, some containing cattle, were stationed five and
six miles below the city. I was induced to enter one of
these, on the assurance that there were none higher up
(which proved to be false), for the stipulated fare of sixteen
cash (three farthings), when my own boat, which I thought
must have crossed over below, turned up. A. pleasant
feature in these parts is the carrying of everything in and
on baskets, called Pei tsz, attached to the back, with plaited
bamboo straps round the shoulder. The eternal bamboo
carrying-pole, with the weights dangling at each end, and its
accompanying “Hee-haw, Ah-oo!” no longer mars the
scene, Frogs croaked steadily through the night for the
first time this year.

Day’s run, eighty li (twenty miles); total from Ichang,
323 miles.

Tuesday, April 3rd.—Fine warm day ; light south-westerly
wind still ahead. We were off at 5.30 a.m. I landed at
seven at the foot of the “ T’ien tze Shan,” ‘ Mountain of the
Son of Heaven,” which is situated on the left bank below
and immediately adjoining the walled city of ‘‘ Féng tu,” ze,
“ The Abundant Capital,” commonly called “ Féng-tu-Chéng.
This is one of the many steep, isolated hills abounding in
this level sandstone district. Being a sacred mount, it is
wooded to the summit, upon which is a collection of ancient,
solidly-built, but now ruinous, temples, said to date from
before the Tang dynasty, at which period (eighth and ninth
centuries), however, the existing buildings—with wood
pillars supporting tiled roofs—were erected. This temple
is dedicated to the Emperor of the “ Yin,” or Dead, as the
Imperial palace at Peking is to the Emperor of the “ Yang,”

120 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

or Living; and as that is the visible home of T’ien tze, or
Son of Heaven, so this is the type of the shadowy Emperor
of Hades. The only curious thing in the uncomfortably
dirty range of building and courtyards, filled with grimy
josses of all sizes and shapes, is the figure of a woman in an
elegant modern dress, and with the usual gold or gilt face,
who sits enthroned on the left hand of the image, representing
the “ Yin chien T’ien tze,” which latter is a gilt figure, in no
way, that I could distinguish, different from the ordinary
Buddhist idol. On its right is a gilt female figure covered
with dust, the god’s chief wife; but the figure on the left
contains a real skeleton, to whom the women in the neigh-
bourhood annually present a new embroidered silk dress.
This second -wife of the “Infernal” Emperor was only
acquired by him about fifty years ago, in the twelfth year
of the reign of “ Chai-king,” in the following manner: A
maiden of Ho-chow, a town situated above Chung-king, was
being carried in her bridal chair to the home of her betrothed,
when, half-way en route, the chair door was opened, but the
bride had disappeared. The husband’s family entered an
action for breach of promise against the bride’s family,
which, after proceeding over two years, was stopped by the
lady herself appearing in a dream to her parents, and in-
forming them that on her marriage day the “Tien tze” had
claimed her for his second wife, and carried her off from her
chair; and that her body, of which only the skeleton now
remains, would be found alongside her new husband’s effigy
on the T’ien tze Shan. Of the fact that the earthly bride-
groom lost his bride, I have no doubt, nor of the ensuing
action at law; of the rest of the legend, which is universally
believed as I have narrated it, each barbarian sceptic must
form his own explanation. Féng-tu-Chéng is celebrated
over the whole eighteen provinces, as at every death the

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feestdence of the Chinese Pluto 121

officiating Taoist priest indites a despatch to the T’ien tze,
duly addressed to Féng-tu-Chéng, notifying him of the new-
comer. This despatch is, however, not sent through the
terrestrial post, but by the celestial road, being burnt to
ashes. No Chinaman will enter the precincts of the T’ien
tze Shan alone, nor venture near it at all after sunset, as it
is haunted by innumerable ghosts, as befits the residence of
the ruler of Hades. Their presence is known, not only by
their cries at night, but the priests put out every night a
bundle of birch rods. Sometimes these disappear altogether ;
at other times they are found all in splinters, having been
used to flog refractory, drunken, and other vicious spirits at
the ghostly tribunals.

My Chinese companions, who are usually too lazy to
leave the boat, and who do not care how long the voyage
lasts as long as they can eat and sleep their fill, became
genuinely excited upon arriving at Féng-tu. They climbed
up the steep hillside—about 300 feet—bought incense and
candles, and performed a general Kow-tow all round.
Another show-place—for cash, be it well understood—is
a dry well, said to communicate with the river. We bought
paper cash of the priest, which was set alight and dropped
through a stone grating immediately in front of the altar,
thus contributing our mite to the aid of the struggling souls
in purgatory below. The burning paper soon lodged on
the bottom, and hence it would appear that the ash of the
billions of cash deposited in it have filled up this wonderful
well to within a few feet of its mouth. We descended by
a fine, broad, easy, stone path through the wood, which,
interspersed with opium patches, covers this sacred mount.
At each turn are small temples adorned with Buddhas; and
by the roadside are inlaid stone tablets with hortatory texts
engraved upon them; such as, “ The affairs of life are all

192 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

vanity,” etc.; the whole arrangement of the zig-zag path re-
minding me of the path adorned with the stations of the Cross
such as is often to be seen in Roman Catholic countries.
We passed through the city, which is a poor place with
low walls and gates, and the usual crowded Chinese streets,
filthy in fine, and impassable in wet weather; then to our
boat across the usual long, steep sandbank, covered with
a temporary bamboo town, which is moved up higher and
higher as the river rises. I was followed by the customary
crowd, for whose benefit I sat on the bows of the boat
while delayed waiting for the relief Ting-chai (messenger).
We got away at nine a.m., literally threading our way
through a huge reef of rocks, which extends across the river
just above this city. On emerging from this labyrinth, I was
not a little surprised to see on a bluff, separated from the
town by a lofty, almost perpendicular, sandstone hill, the walls
of another city, with the usual gates, crowned by handsome
two-storied pavilions or guard-houses, its walls enclosing a
large area of highly-cultivated ground and a few, possibly
fifty, scattered houses, the intended yaméns or residences of
the officials. This city without inhabitants might, I at first
thought, have been built for the mysterious Son of Heaven
and his shadowy subjects, from whose presence Féng-tu has
acquired so great distinction. I was informed, however,
that Féng-tu-Chéng proper having been entirely washed
away in the terrific flood of 1870, the then magistrate “ Ma”
had built this new city at a safe height above the river, and
had ordered the surviving inhabitants to remove to it. This
they refused to do, preferring the risk of inundation to the
inconvenience of having to carry their daily supply of water
up a height of two hundred feet. They appealed to Peking ;
and it having been discovered that out of a total cost of
250,000 Ma had embezzled £50,000 (his real object in

A New, Deserted City 123

undertaking it, the natives say), he was incontinently
degraded ; but having disgorged a portion to the officials of
the capital, he was permitted to retire, and the inhabitants
were ordered to rebuild their houses on the old site. Mean-
while, Ma has a monument which will ensure the handing
down of his name to all posterity. The walls of this unin-
habited city are splendidly built of the local sandstone, and
the inscriptions in the stone plaques, let in over the open
and deserted gateways, I could read with my field-glass,
although a mile distant.

The view of the river from the T’ien tze Shan is not
unlike that of the entrance of the Niukan, or Ox-liver Gorge.
The stream seemed to lose itself behind a succession of lofty
points, backed by mountains of fifteen hundred to two
thousand feet, each range separated from the other by the
morning mist, in which the distant valleys were concealed,
the rich vegetation in the foreground, and the curved
temple-roofs peeping out behind the trees, adding to the
beauty of the scene. On passing up we found, in fact, the
banks very steep, cliff-like in many places, and strewn with
huge rocks, which render the navigation dangerous in
summer-time.

Making another of the usual rectangular turns, this time
to the west, the river widens and flows between steep banks,
every available spot being carefully cultivated with the
poppy. We proceeded slowly past several small rapids, and
brought up under a steep sandbank, on which poppies were
growing almost to the water’s edge; opposite the busy
market-town of Sheng-chi Chang, the river, including a
boulder-covered sandbank near the left shore, being fully
three-quarters of a mile wide.

Distance run, seventy li (seventeen miles); from Ichang,
340 miles,

124 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Wednesday, April 4th.—18th day from Ichang ; 36th from
Hankow ; 56th from Shanghai. Very hot sun. On waking
this morning I found the sun shining straight in on my bed,
showing our course to be about due east, though our goal is
due west. At seven I landed on a rocky ledge, called “ Pai-
Chien,” at an elbow, where we turned up to the north, and
looked out on a vast spread of rocky islands and promon-
tories, all flat-topped, and about twenty feet higher than the
present level, the remains evidently of a continuous sand-
stone stratum, which the river had gradually broken down.
I walked inland by a direct path through the poppy-fields,
now a mass of white flower, enjoying the balmy air of this
bright summer morning. At length I heard a noise ahead
which made me ask myself if it were possible a pile-driver
had invaded this wild and remote district. I listened
attentively ; the thud was clear and unmistakable above the
roar of the river, and the intervals corresponded exactly with
those of my old Shanghai acquaintance. Walking on, I
found the sound proceeded from one of the roomy farm-
steads which are scattered throughout these valleys. I
climbed up the usual long flight of stone steps, and found an
extensive, tile-roofed shed, in which the full process of T’ung
oil manufacture was being carried on. Opium and T’ung
(Elaocacoa, or varnish-tree) oil are the two main staples of
Eastern Szechuan. The T’ung nut, which yields the oil, was
being ground up in a circular stone trough by iron wheels
dragged round by a blindfold ox. The resultant coarse
powder is then made into circular cakes with straw, and a
horizontal pile is then placed in a very rough but solid
wooden press, and long wedges are successively driven in,
and the oil expressed. These wedges are iron-capped, and
are struck by a huge ram slung from the roof and worked
by two men, the taking correct aim being apparently an

City of Fu-chow 128

affair of much nicety. The oil-cake remaining is a valuable
manure for the poppy.

The reach we were now in, at the head of which is situated
the city of Fu-chow, runs north-west, and is straight for
about four miles, when the river turns to the south-west, and
the reach opens up. It is lined throughout with loose rocks,
which produce a succession of points and smallrapids. The
hills are steep, and are, together with the back range, entirely
covered with the poppy. Along the left bank, about sixty feet
above the present level, runs a fine broad path— Ta-lu”
(i.e, high road), the Chinese call it, and well may it be dignified
with such a name, in comparison with the goat-paths which
usually pass for roads. It is of dressed stone, solidly built
up upon the rocks. As the sun was getting uncomfortably
hot, and there was no prospect of being able to descend to
the boat as far ahead as I could see, I was congratulating
myself on the easy progress, when all at once I found the
road broken up by an avalanche of rocks, which were not.
overcome without much sweat of brow. In this reach I
noticed my boat boarded by a small vessel bearing the Fu-
chow “ Chih-chow’s” (Prefect) flag, with two well-dressed
Ting-chai sent to meet me. They returned ahead of us,
having made the necessary inquiries and prepared an escort
of a Sze-yeh (clerk) and four messengers, who accompanied
us, in a separate boat, from Fu-chow on to the next pre-
fectural district—Chang-sho.

Fu-chow stands at the head of a broad reach enclosed by
steep hills about a thousand feet high, on one of which is a
white, modern, nine-storied pagoda about sixty feet high,
on the lower slope of a steep hill which appears to close the
reach at its western end. Raised tier above tier, the site
of Fu-chow reminded my Chinamen of that of Hong-kong.
Though on a smaller scale, the situation of Fu-chow is

126 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

certainly very impressive, and unequalled by any of the
many picturesque cities we have passed these last 300 miles.
Like Coblentz, it is situated at the confluence of a clear-
water river and a thick stream, the two descending together
a long distance without mixing. The clear river is “ Kung
tan H@,” the only affluent of importance which the Yang-
tse receives between this and the Tung-ting Lake, a distance
of 600 miles. This river has its source in the neighbour-
hood of one of the feeders of that vast artery, and is navig-
able some 800 li, or about 200 miles, and is utilized at
times as a way of transit to Hankow and to Canton, when
the Yang-tse itself is in too violent flood for the junks to
navigate in safety. The boats used on this river, which is
about 200 yards wide at its mouth, are the most extraordinary
I have ever seen. The curious, fiddle-shaped boats of the
Poyang Lake, built for cheating the local customs’ measure-
ment, are nothing to them. It is just as though a giant had
taken an ordinary junk in his two hands and wrung it a quarter
round, so that the stern deck is actually perpendicular, being
at right angles to the forward deck, into which the slope
gradually merges. I was told that only a boat of this shape
could twist through the rocks and whirlpools of the Kung
rapid (t’an), from which the river takes its name of “ Kung
t'an Hd” (River of the Rapid of Kung.) These boats are
called “Wai pi-ku’rh,” meaning “twisting stern.” The
only object of their peculiar shape which I could discover,
after a narrow inspection on board, was to bring the fulcrum
of the gigantic stern-sweep into a line with the keel, and at
the same time on to the edge of the usual raised quarter.
This sweep is worked from a bridge crossing the junk
amidships. On the perpendicular quarter-deck are rungs, to
enable a man to climb up if needful. They have no rudder,
but a second smaller sweep on the depressed corner of the

The Kung Rapid River 17

quarter, worked under the big sweep from a spot where the
deck approaches to the horizontal.

The Kung t’an H6 enters the Yang-tse immediately south
of Fu-chow and in line with the main river, which here takes
a sharp bend to the north. The angle of the bend opposite
the town forms a lake-like expanse, in which many reefs
and sandbanks are now visible. On the latter are some of
the Wai pi-ku'rh hauled up for repair, so that I had an
opportunity of carefully investigating the extraordinary shape
I have described above. A violent whirlpool, the feeble
remains of which swept us rapidly past, forms off this town
in summer ; and if a descending junk happens to get caught
in it, she is inevitably swallowed up; so said my informant.
This was a native of Shantung, the captain of a hundred men
(part of the garrison of three hundred), who called on board
while we were relieving Ting-chai, and who, having had
much intercourse with foreigners while in the Chinese navy,
was one of the few men who have it in their power to give
an approach to accurate information. Fu-chow is full of
spacious temples; one holding a commanding position on
the point, and overlooking the suburb under which we
moored, was under repair. On inquiry, I found that,
although the knoll on which it stands is sixty or seventy
feet above the present river-level, the temple was completely
washed away in 1877. It is surprising that they should
have rebuilt it on the same spot.

Above Fu-chow another long reef of rocks runs out
parallel with the right bank, outside of which we tracked ; a
few miles further is the picturesque town of Li-tu, built ona
sloping ledge sixty to a hundred feet above the river, and
running with the strata, which here dip to the south-south-
west. Aboveand below are the sandstone cliffs, which crop
up in every direction throughout this region.

128 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

Distance run, ninety li (twenty-two miles): total from
Ichang, 362 miles.

Thursday, April 5th.—* Ching-ming,” or first day of the
fortnightly period of the Chinese calendar— Clear bright.”

A very fine day, without wind, but with very hot sunshine.
We started early as usual, and passed through several lake-
like reaches, mostly running at right angles to each other,
obstructed at the ends by extensive rock ledges now dry,
and forming smaller rapids, and in their middle by extensive
boulder-covered sandbanks. The hills are from 500 to
1200 feet high, beautifully cultivated to their summits with
the dark-green poppy, interspersed with cypress and large
bamboo groves. The water latterly is a rich chocolate
colour, the same colour as the ferruginous soil which covers
all the hills from Wan Hsien upwards. We passed the
village of Lin-sze, noticeable from its large three-arched
bridge, decorated with three handsome, new, carved stone
*“ Pai-Fang,” or triumphal arches, which spans a gully now
dry. This bridge, they say, gets washed away once every
twenty years. On the opposite or left bank of the river,
here three-quarters of a mile wide, stands out another of the
many cliff-sided, flat-topped, isolated hills which distinguish
this sandstone country. This one, about 300 feet high, was
remarkable from a distance for the fine, thick wood of big
trees which covered its talus, and the tops of which half con-
cealed a range of buildings which I thought must be a
temple. It turned out to be the residence of a wealthy
family (‘‘ Tsai-chu,” ¢.c, Wealth-Lord, or Plutocrat), such as are
scattered about in picturesque and isolated situations, testify-
ing to the peace and quiet that now reign throughout this
rich province. On the edge of the cliff was a large, orna-
mental gateway, and two two-storied pavilions, or drum-
towers, appeared to adorn the outer courtyard. Above this

“ Longevity” City 129

place we threaded our way through extensive flat reefs, and
passed under a steep cliff on the left bank, into which were
built two stone archways, as though opening into the rock.
Landing in a broiling sun, I climbed up the steep talus,
and found these to be archways of trimmed sandstone, built
into a cave in the rock, in the rear of which sat two colossal,
gilded Buddhas—the images of a bean-curd seller and his
wife, who resided near this spot when in life, and after death
were canonized for their good deeds.

Shortly above this quaint evidence of the religious spirit
which still pervades the Chinese, we enter the “ Chien-tao,”
or “Scissors” Gorge, where projecting points narrow the
river to about 300 yards. - The strata of the steep banks,
above 1000 feet high here, dip at an angle of about 45° to
S.W., and several burrows of soft coal have been opened.
It is noticeable that hereabouts, not only the houses, but
all the local boats, large and small, use coal for fuel, for
burning which they have specially-constructed stoves, with
low, tile chimneys. On emerging from this gorge we entered
a wide reach, bordered by less precipitous hills, and the. city
of Chang-sho * rises up before us on the left bank. This place
is peculiar, in that the walled city proper occupies the flat
summit of a hill some goo feet high, nothing but the outside
of its walls, with their crenelated battlements standing out
against the evening sky, being visible from the river, with
which it is connected by a straggling suburb creeping down
the hill a mile anda half long. A small affluent, now dry, runs
on the south-east side, crossed by a lofty (fifty feet) four-
arched bridge. A handsome Confucian temple adorns this
suburb, in which the business of the place, which consists
principally in the export of bamboo matting for packing

goods, appears to be transacted. Much of the matting used
* = longevity,

.

K

130 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

in Hankow comes from this place. I went ashore, and
walked through some of the streets, which were wide, well
paved, and the houses roomy, as everywhere in Szechuan,
but the people and surroundings little less filthy than through-
out China generally. We brought up here for the night at
six o’clock, instead of at seven, as usual, in a position where
my Lao-ta and crew could sleep at ease, there being no fear
of thieves (of which notices, warning boatmen not to moor
for the night in remote spots, were painted on the rocks
in several places coming along), and too conveniently near
the usual along shore latrines.

Distance, nine li (twenty-two miles); total from Ichang,
384 miles.

Friday, April 6th.—Thunderstorm with heavy rain in
night ; cleared at eight a.m., with strong north-easterly wind
and lower temperature.

The five Chai-jen (messenger-men) who escorted us from
Fu-chow in their own boat left us here, and neither asked
for nor received a present. They were relieved by two
sickly wretches, the hands of one being covered with leprous
sores ; happily, they too had their own boat. These Chai-
jen, or, as they are commonly called, ‘ Ya-men runners,”
are attached to every Hsien or magistracy (Sub-prefecture)
in large cities, to the number of 1000 or more, and pick up
a living as best they can, being paid by the job. Their great
source of income is the law-suits, which are always going on,
when both parties have to spend freely to get a hearing.
Taking their cue from their superiors, who are here most
agreeably polite to the foreigner, I found this usually
truculent and detested class obsequiously civil.

We started at nine a.m. The river had fallen two feet
in the night, and our boat grounded in consequence. The
water was very thick after the heavy rain. The country

Free School in Szechuan: Characters ‘‘I Shud" (Free Teaching) over Door.
[To face p. 130.

Loch Fan and the Coal Gorge 131

is more open; the hills are from three to six hundred feet
“high, cultivated to the summit with the poppy, and backed
by higher ranges, steep, with the precipitous peaks well-
wooded. We nooned at Lo-chi, a large village built on a
wide and steep boulder-heap, and remarkable for its mat
industry, the shore being lined with booths in which the
manufacture of the large, neat, double-plaited bamboo
matting, used for junk housing and also for the walls and
roofs of dwellings, was being carried on. The men’s
midday meal over, we continued under sail with a true fair
wind, against a moderate current of not more than two
knots, through the “ Shan-pei To” (‘ Fan Loch”), a lake-like
expanse five miles long and a mile wide. We thence threaded
our way through an archipelago of rock islands, the left
bank being precipitous and only cultivated in patches, the
right bank hilly, and having at its foot an extensive embank-
ment between it and the river. Like those scattered
throughout the river-bed all the way from Kwei-fu upwards,
these rock islands are of the same height, now twenty to thirty
feet out of water, precipitous, and level-topped, and generally
bare, being all under water in summer; but those in the
Shan-pei To had a more pleasing aspect, their tops being
green with moss and scattered grass patches..

Turning sharp round to the right, we passed through a
short, narrow gorge, called the “Coal Gorge,” with precipitous
peaks a thousand to twelve hundred feet high on the right
bank, and entered the expanse of the Lu-tsz’ T’o. This was
filled with piles of boulders of all colours, and about the size
of ostrich eggs, rising some twenty feet above the river, and
with sides so steep that in tracking along them our boat
almost rubbed against the pile while still travelling in deep
water. We continued for two hours after dark, until eight
p.m., cautiously feeling our way, and occasionally bumping

132 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

on a rock midst the roar of rushing water under the opposite
left bank, until we brought up at the village of Lu-tze To.
Distance run, 120 li (thirty miles) ; total, 414 miles.
Saturday, April 7th—Between Ichang and Chung-king
the Yang-tse is universally known as the “Chuan Ho,” or
River of Szechuan. Above Chung-king it is commonly
called the “ Séng Ho,” or River of the Provincial Capital,
i.e, Cheng-tu-séng. The junks only attempt sailing when
going up-river with a fair wind, when they hoist large square
lug-sails without any bamboos, not unlike those of the
picturesque Japanese junks, except that the foot is stretched
on a yard, which is lashed to the mast amidships and stayed
by two guys (they can hardly be called sheets) leading aft.
They are useless with the wind abeam, and are simply
lowered and furled when the wind ceases to be fair. How-
ever hard the wind blows, it never seems to raise any sea ;
the Chinamen say because the river runs too fast, but the
cause is the perpetual ‘“‘ chow-chow ” or vertical motion of the
currents, due to the sunken reefs, which effectually check
each nascent ripple. Aided then by an up-wind, we tracked
up the fierce “ Yeh-lo tze” (“Wild Mule Rapid”), the river
and banks being strewn with rocks, and rowed through
the “ Tung-lo hsia” (“ Brass Gong Gorge”), a short but very
picturesque gorge, with nearly vertical walls, between hills
about eight hundred feet high, and entered the expanse
of “ Tang chia t’o” (the Loch of the Tang Family) in the
steep hills, surrounding which are many lime-kilns.*
Thence we passed into a tamer reach, with low, steep,
conical hills on the left bank ; and low, rounded hills, highly
* Since the formal opening of Chung-king in 1891, the Imperial
Maritime Customs have opened a station at this place, in charge of an
European. All “chartered” junks, z.¢. junks under “ foreign ” flags,

have now to report at this station for examination of cargo and
“papers.”

North-Bank Suburb 133

cultivated with poppy, tobacco, barley, and beans, on the right.
We nooned for the men’s dinner at the foot of a romantic-
looking temple, called “Ta Fo Sze,” or ‘Great Buddha’s
Hall,” situated in a large, walled enclosure of bamboo groves,
orange, camellia, and other trees. Outside was a colossal
stone Buddha, gilt, sitting in a stone pavilion open to the
river, and approached by a long flight of stone steps, before
which our boatmen, as is the invariable custom with the
crews of upward bound junks from Ichang, thankful to have
concluded their perilous voyage, reverently kotowed.

I landed and inspected the temple, in one court of which
are five more colossal stone Buddhas, the grounds in front
being prettily laid out in stone terraces, gardens, and fish-
ponds, all in a fair state of repair. I then walked on along
the right bank, until, on rounding a point on the left, a high-
peaked range was visible to the south, and between this and
the point I stood on extended an amphitheatre of rocky
cliffs and hills, entirely covered with shining-white houses
as far as the eye could reach; while the river at its foot,
divided by rocks into several arms, was crowded with
thousands of junks of all shapes and sizes securely moored
in every bight and backwater. This was the walled city of
“Li-min fu,” usually known as “ Chiang-peh Ting,” or “‘ North-
bank Suburb ” of the great metropolis higher up. This town
is situated on the left bank of the Yang-tse, and immediately
below the mouth of an affluent, the “ Kia-ling Ho,” which
here flows in from the north-west. On the opposite or right
bank of this affluent, and built on a lofty sandstone peninsula,
formed by its junction with the main river, stands the sister-
city of Chung-king (both, in the Mandarin language and
locally, known as Chung-ching)—the commerical metropolis
of Szechuan. The shore on which I was standing—the right
or south-east bank of the Great River—is also covered with a

134 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

long and busy suburb, the three towns together forming a most
imposing spectacle of animated movement on land and water,
backed by a magnificent amphitheatre of richly cultivated
and finely wooded hills, rising steeply fifteen hundred feet
above the water. There is no doubt that we have now
safely arrived at the great commerical metropolis of the West.
The position reminded me forcibly of that of Quebec, with
the difference that here the river is narrower and the hills
are far more lofty. Estimated population, 400,000.

I stood a long time on one of the many rocky platforms
by which the stream is broken up, watching the busy gangs
of coolies loading and discharging the vast fleet of junks
laden with the mingled produce of the east, north, and west.
Conspicuous as they climbed up the long flights of steps
were files of. porters toiling under huge bales of white,
unpressed cotton, looking in the distance like regiments of
busy ants carrying their eggs. I gazed at leisure on the
busy scene, enjoying the novelty of being allowed to look
on unmolested by the crowd, as well as the contrast with the
stillness of the wild, natural scenery, amidst which so many
long days had been spent. Yet I was sorry that this must
necessarily be the goal of my present journeyings, business
requiring me to be back in Hankow in the following month.
The farther one travels, the farther one wants to travel.

Szechuan, the westernmost and at once the richest and
the largest of the eighteen provinces, has an area of 167,000
square miles, being little less than that of France, and is
credited with a population of thirty-five millions.* The

* Such was the area of the province as drawn in the maps of twenty
years back. Latterly, the Chinese have added large stretches of the
Tibetan border behind and beyond the great mountain wall to the
administrative region of Szechuan, so that to-day (1898) the province
is said to comprise 220,000 square miles, and 40,000,000 inhabitants.

End of our Voyage 135

province may roughly be described as a high basin situated
at the foot of the great snow-mountains that wall in the
Thibetan table-land, and cut off from free communication with
the other provinces by wide mountain-ranges less lofty than
these, but hardly less precipitous. Hence it has been even
more independent of the Central Government than is else-
where the case in the loosely attached organism known as the
Chinese Empire ; and since the great cataclysm which over-
spread it during the wars consequent upon the Manchu
invasion in the seventeenth century, it has enjoyed an almost
uninterrupted peace. Under these circumstances, its pro-
sperity is assured by an exceptionally fertile soil, a general
sub-tropical climate, and a purely nominal land-tax. The
people are amiable, and their civility to the stranger is a
delightful surpise, after the rude treatment he has been sub-
jected to in the coast and central provinces. Of course the
few foreign travellers here all speak the language, and hence
we are not regarded, as we are on the coast, as “‘ speechless ”
barbarians who have never learnt manners.

I was received here most hospitably by the proprietor of
a large piece-goods hong, in which I proposed to stay while
making a hurried investigation of the capabilities of the place,
in view of the clause in the Chefoo Convention, stipulating
for the opening of Chung-king to the foreign trade, being
carried out.

We terminated our long voyage in the Old Lady of Shen
by running her nose up against the steepy rocky slope
at the foot of the east gate of the city, standing about two
hundred feet above us. While my Chinamen were gone
ashore to announce our arrival, I waited in the boat, and
amused myself watching the naked gamins chasing the rats
which were being washed out of their holes by the rapidly
rising river. This rise was seriously disconcerting the

136 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

inhabitants of the many well-built bamboo houses, who crowd
to the extreme margin as the water falls, and have now to beat
a hasty retreat. At length a sedan chair was sent down to the
boat to receive me, and we quickly ascended the long stone
staircase, and having entered the city gate, I was carried
through the narrow, crowded streets to my host’s residence
in the “ Pai-hsiang kai,” or “Street of the White Elephant.”
This is the main business street of the bankers and wholesale
merchants of Chung-king, and contains many fine hongs.
A hong of this description consists of a series of two-storied
buildings situated one behind the other, and separated by
intervening courtyards, the whole comprising the warehouses,
offices, and residences of the clerks and servants employed
in the establishment. The ground floor is very lofty, and
elaborately decorated with gilding and carving in wood and
stone; the upper story, mostly bedrooms for the numerous
staff, being low, unwholesome attics. In many instances, as
in the present one, the proprietor (“ Tung-chia,” z.e. “who
sits on the East”) resides with his family at a distance. My
host lived in the “ Upper Town,” which stands on a sand-
stone plateau about one hundred feet above and imme-
diately in the rear of the business quarter. I had here a
little room assigned to me, and messed with the “ Ho-chi”
—literally, “ partners,’ but who would be better described
as assistants, and was glad of the opportunity thus afforded
me of free converse with the natives of the place during
my Stay.

I had made the journey from Ichang in twenty-one days.
Had I hired a large passenger-junk usually employed, called
“Kua-tsz,” I should have occupied double the time, the
chief delay being in waiting one’s turn to tow up the rapids,
while a small boat scrambles through on the unoccupied
bank, and thus often escapes a detention of two or three days.

Distance of Chung-king from the Sea 137

Twenty-first day from Ichang; fortieth from Hankow;
and fifty-ninth from Shanghai.

Distance, according to Blakiston, 358 geographical miles ;
equal to 412 statute miles; and from Hankow, 721 geo-
graphical, equal to 829 statute, miles. From Shanghai, 1309
geographical, equal to 1506 statute miles.

Note.—I cannot but think that Blakiston has hardly allowed for
all the windings of the river when he makes the distance from Ichang
to Chung-king 358 geographical miles. The Chinese Gazetteer of the
Upper Yang-tse, which gives the distance from town to town the whole
way, sets down 1800 li as the total. This, at the usual reckoning of
3% li to the geographical mile, would give a distance of 491 geo-
graphical or 566 statute miles. An Admiralty survey is much wanted
to decide the point with final accuracy.

138 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

CHAPTER VII.
CHUNG-KING,

The weather—Morning calls—Visit to a Chinese country house—A
fine road— A tedious meal—Personal uncleanliness—The Tung
family—“ Feng Shui” again--A tough yarn—An inscription.

SZECHUAN is noted among the Chinese for its overcast
skies and showery climate. During the month of April that
I spent there, we had heavy showers regularly every night.
The province seems to lie beneath a cloud-belt, a peculiarity
depicted from ancient times in the name of the adjoining
province of Yiin-nan, which means, “To the south of the
clouds.”

Since the murder of Margary at Teng-yiieh, in Yiinnan, in
1875, British consular agents have been successively de-
puted from Peking to reside and travel in Western China,
with their head-quarters in Chung-king. These officials have
been appointed, under the Chefoo Convention of 1876, to
see that the promised proclamation, stating the rights of
British subjects to travel unmolested throughout the
Empire, was duly posted in all the large towns, and
generally to report on the capacity of these remote regions
for trade. Much most interesting and valuable information
has been thus collected, and issued to the public in the form
of consular reports, where they lie buried. Baber the

Entrance Gate of Temple outside Walls of Chung-kiyg City ; the Chinese
Characters are, ‘‘ Cave of Genii and Spirits” (p. 139).
[To face p. 138.

British Consuls at Chung-king 139

inimitable, Spence, and Hosie, have all earned the thanks of
their countrymen for their arduous labours in collecting
original facts in this field. At the time of my arrival, Mr.
Hosie was away in Kwei-chow (the province lying to the
south-east), and the consular office was in charge of H.M.
“Writer,” Mr, Mai, or, to call him by his title, Mai-sze-yeh.
The consular Ya-mén is situated in the upper town, and
consists of a substantial modern Chinese courtyard building.
Mr. Mai, who received me when I called, is a native of
Yiinnan, and a Mahometan (“Hui-hui”). He has visited
Singapore, and is consequently familiar with the barbarian
“Chi,” or restlessness, which so astonishes and worries the
untravelled Chinese. He therefore responded to my multi-
farious inquiries, and introduced me to Mr. Tung, or Tung-
Loa-yeh, an owner of coal-mines, who wishes me to import
foreign pumping machinery for him. These all breakfasted
with me at the hospitable table of my host, Mr. Hsing-hsi-
tang. The upper and business classes in China take but two
meals a day—breakfast at ten, and dinner at five; late
people, however, as the merchants mostly are (much
business being transacted at night over the opium-pipe),
have a supper in addition. I accepted an invitation from
Tung to visit him at his country house to-morrow, and stay
over a day or two. I witnessed from the steps of our hong,
an elaborate Buddhist procession, which occupied over half
an hour passing the door. The numerous fableaux vivants
represented various fairy legends, each composed of a group
of four boys gorgeously dressed, and borne on a platform
supported on bamboo poles, and carried on the shoulders
of two men. Children dressed up as sages, with flowing
white beards, followed in the procession on horseback—all
pretty conceits, and novel to me.

In the afternoon I called on Dr. Wheeler, D.D., to whom

140 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

I had a letter of introduction, and who lives in the “ Shang
Cheng,” or Upper City. I went there in a chair, up steps
all the way. The streets are broad, busy, and filthy, and
might have been those of a hundred similar towns I have
visited in China. Dr. Wheeler belongs to the American
Methodist Episcopal Mission, and came up here from
Kiukiang last winter with his wife and three daughters,
none of whom care to walk out of the compound, European
women being still a novelty and objects of insuperable
curiosity to the Western Chinese. The site is charming,
with a magnificent prospect across the Siao Ho (affluent) to
“Chiang-peh ting” (“ City on the North Bank”).

Monday, April gth.—I carried out my promise to Tung
Lao-yeh to accompany him to his country seat, to which I
set out in a sedan with three bearers. Tung Lao-yeh’s
dwelling is situated near a gap in the hills, through which
passes the main road to Chéng-tu Séng, the capital of the
province. This road is the sole “ Han-lu” (dry road) out
of Chung-king, the city being built on a narrow peninsula
formed by the Yang-tse, locally the Tsz’ shui Ho, or “ Letters’
Water River,” and the great affluent locally known as the
Siao H6. The Yang-tse here is so-called from the curls,
like Chinese characters, which the innumerable eddies form
on its smooth, glistening surface. This affluent, the Siao
H6, is about half the size of the main stream, and drains
a large area of country to the north and north-west of the
great river’s main valley. This river has its sources in the
boundary ranges of the provinces of Kan-su and Shen-si,
and furnishes water communication—obstructed by rapids
which are the concomitant of all Szechuan rivers—with the
cities of Ho-chow, Pa-chow, Suilin, and Pao-ning-fu. This
dry road is one of the best in China, being fully five feet
wide, and paved with heavy stone slabs laid crossways.

Chinese Gentleman's Residence 141

Quite half the road was composed of long ascending and
descending staircases, the hills here, as throughout China,
being remarkable for their steepness. After going for over
a mile through the city streets, we went out at the west gate,
and descended for about a hundred steps on to a road
which passed along the edge of the sandstone cliffs some
hundred and fifty feet above the river-bed, now two-thirds
dry, and having a fine stone parapet guarding the path on
the outside. Thence the road ascends by steps over a hill
about five hundred feet high—one mass of small, mostly
nameless, graves, with not a single tree or shrub to break
their monotony, but with a grand prospect of the rushing
river and the lofty hills rising from the opposite bank, all
green with the spring crops of opium, barley, and beans,
:- and picturesque, tree-embosomed villages and residences
scattered throughout. A marked feature of Eastern Szechuan
is the total absence both of plain and of barren hills, every
inch of land being either under cultivation or wooded—
except round the cities, where the monotonous cemeteries
occupy more ground than do the living inhabitants. After
travelling thus up and down three miles of grave-covered
hills, we ascended through a narrow wooded gap, and passed
under several elaborately carved stone triumphal arches, or
“ Pai-fang,” more numerous and handsome in Szechuan than
in any other province; then through a small village on to
a high hill commanding a glorious prospect of river and
valley, upon which is built the “Tang,” or family residence
of the Tungs, until at length we rested in the formally set-
out K’o-tang, or guest-hall, looking on to a handsome en-
closed courtyard filled with orange, camellia, and azalea
trees. growing in large pots placed on stone pedestals. I
was at once surrounded by the children of the family, which
consists of three brothers, having eighteen children amongst

142 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

them—ten boys and eight girls. The women were only
allowed to peep in at the barbarian through curtained doors.

As soon as we sat down, cloths wrung out of hot water
were handed to us to wipe our faces—a most refreshing
custom in a warm climate, and the usual hot tea, which the
two assiduous servants would never allow to cool, marching
round with a kettle of hot water to replace each sip taken
by the guests. Then, in my honour, followed the usual
Chinese dinner-party, which to the western is an intolerably
tedious affair. Seven of us sat down to a small square table,
I, as the guest of the day, having a seat at the top all to
myself, the others sitting two each on short benches. The
table was adorned at starting with sixteen large set dishes of
highly-flavoured mincemeats, fruits, and vegetables, and
about a dozen saucers containing melon-seeds, pea-nuts,
candied orange-peel, etc., the centre being occupied by the
“removes,” which are replaced successively a dozen times
or more throughout the feast, and consist largely of fat pork
cooked in various ways. The business of the day com-
menced with swallowing endless thimblefuls of hot “sam-
shu,” a fiery spirit made from millet, interspersed with the
cracking of melon-seeds and pea-nuts, and the tasting of the
different dishes with chop-sticks, the Lilliputian saucer in
front of the honoured guests being heaped up with tit-bits
fished out with the chop-sticks of the too polite hosts.
Gradually, after all have drunk well, the removes are
seriously attacked, when the company, after about two hours’
time, being absolutely unable to swallow any more food,
wine-drinking recommences, stimulated by the noisy and, to
the Chinaman, highly exciting game of Morra, in which I am
fairly proficient. All this time not a morsel of bread or
grain of rice to assist the deglutition of the greasy dishes,
only occasional hot cloths to wipe the mouth and the

A Chinese Banquet 143

perspiring brow, and a few whiffs of the common hubble-
bubble, which a lad is told off to constantly hand round to
each guest. This he does, the burning match in one hand,
the pipe in the other, presenting the long brass stem to the
mouth. Little red paper napkins, five inches by two, are
folded before each guest, but are totally insufficient to wipe
away the grease-spots with which the varnished table at an
early period gets covered, bones, gristle, etc., being spat
out on the floor to mingle with the tobacco from the per-
petually relighted pipes. All the while one is seated on
a high, hard wooden stool, which is torture to a weary
western traveller, but on which the Chinese loll about from
morning to night. At last, to my intense relief, appeared
a dirty servant with the wooden rice-tub, which he placed
on a sideboard, along with a pile of little rice-bowls. Then
with a wooden scoop he filled a bowl for each guest with
the steaming grain, and the dinner was practically over.
But the bowl, if accepted, must be emptied to the last grain,
or you are set down as totally wanting in manners. To
assist in this, some of the greasy and now cold soup out of
one of the dishes on the table is emptied by each guest into
his bowl, thus enabling him to pick up the last grain. After
the rice, tea is served, and no more wine can be touched.
I never could find any other reason given for this inexorable
rule than that wine is made from the seed, and tea from the
leaves of plants, and to take wine on the top of tea would
be placing the son above the father. Such fanciful reasons
for possibly practical customs abound in China. Chinese
dinners have been described over and over again, but I have
narrated this one, as I think few have given an idea of their
tediousness and the absence of all that we deem comfort.
Still, to mix with the people, one must swallow one’s
antipathies, and conform to their habits.

w

144 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

We retired at nine, the hours from dusk to bedtime being
most uncomfortably passed sitting about on hard, high,
square chairs in a state of darkness made visible by a dim
oil-lamp, consisting of a tilted greasy saucer, on a high stand,
filled with oil, from the edge of which a smoking pith
wick protrudes. There being no privacy in China, I held
a levée in my earth-floored bedroom, furnished with a
gorgeously carved and heavily gilt bedstead, and rows of
red, lacquered, brass-locked wardrobes, and the usual stiff
chairs at little tea-poys. Here I was carefully put to bed
on a mattress of plaited straw, with a not very clean cotton
quilt, and exceedingly dirty flowered-silk bed-curtains. The
Chinese, like our own ancestors, dress in magnificent silks
and satins, their underclothing being often filthy in the
extreme. Though they acknowledge the value of clean-
liness theoretically, their whole life, public and private, is an
almost total negation of it. Rich and poor are all alike, nor
do I find the Szechuan people one whit better than their
neighbours in this respect. Coming up, every man of our
crew was covered with itch-sores, and some ointment I
offered them they would not take the trouble to apply.
There can be no doubt that the Chinese possess a much less
highly developed organization than do the Caucasian races,
and hence their indifference to discomfort and suffering.
They seem, too, nowadays to be quite wanting in the
imaginative faculty, and have long since ceased to invent
anything new; and while doubtless they are thus spared
many of the pains that a superior development of this
faculty afflicts us with, they lose nearly all the highest
pleasures which our more sensitive organization affords us.
Like the animals to a great extent, their procedures follow
instinct or hereditary tendencies rather than reason, and
their ambition seems limited to the gratification of the senses.

The Religion of the Chinese 145

Courage, in the highest sense of controlling their instincts,
they rarely possess; hence, while apathetic in the presence
of sickness and death, they are cowards in the presence of
dangers which call for energetic resistance.

Their religion consists in propitiating evil spirits, and
abjectly kotowing to such saints as they believe may aid
them in worldly enterprises. Such a people, seemingly in-
capable of chivalrous feeling or loyalty, can hardly appreciate
the Christian ideal which we are making such costly efforts
to place before them. Their own system of ethics, based
upon filial piety and “custom,” works well ; and endeavours
to upset it produce at first much harm, whatever the ultimate
good. With all their faults—say radical defects—they possess
many virtues. They are easy-going, kindly disposed towards
one another, clannish in supporting their relations, hospitable,
attached to their employers, and public-spirited, where their
feelings are aroused, to a degree unknown in Europe. But
the whole social system is undermined, from the highest
to the lowest, by peculation and deceit; and, from armies
which only exist in the commander-in-chief’s watdrobe,
and public granaries containing nothing but chaff, down to
presents not intended for acceptance, and proclamations
never meant to be observed, the whole empire is one vast
sham, Yet such is their persistent industry, that, with more
highly gifted leaders to guide and lead them, they may yet
be a great people. As an instance of what resolute leaders
may do with this people, witness the celebrated “ P’ing-
fen,” or “ grave-levelling law,” promulgated at the accession
of various invading dynasties. This law was enforced,
notably at the accession of the Mongols in the tenth century,
when, finding so large a proportion of the cultivable area of
the empire given over to cemeteries, Kublai Khan ordered
them to be ploughed up remorselessly. It is to be regretted

L

146 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

that their Manchu conquerors two hundred years ago were
persuaded to rescind a similar edict.

To return to the Tung family, who are rich and influential.
The father, now deceased, bought official rank of the fifth
grade for himself and his sons, who are now addressed as
“Lao-yeh” (‘Old Sire,” ze. Honourable). The family have
lost a good deal of their money, chiefly by shipwrecks in the
rapids, though they still own a coal-mine thirty miles distant,
a soap factory, silk-spinning, and weaving, and dyeing
establishments ten miles distant, besides shops in the city
itself, where they retail their produce. One brother is a
prefect (Che-fu) in the adjoining province of Kwei-chow,
the other three attending to the various businesses. These
all live together. One tutor teaches the boys; and the
little girls, pretty-looking and gaudily dressed, but piteously
hobbling on their mutilated feet, learn needlework, house-
keeping, and water-colours. At table I was surprised to
see at the upper seat—that is, next to mine—and among my
handsomely clad hosts, a poorly dressed, pale young man,
who, I was told, was the “ Lao-sze” (literally, ‘Old Scholar),”
or family tutor. It is gratifying to see the extreme respect
everywhere paid in China to teachers, whose extreme
poverty would render them despised in Europe.

Tuesday, April toth—Another beautiful, warm summer
day. I went for a short stroll, accompanied as usual by my
hosts, and again admired the view of the river valley hidden
in mist, above which the bright-green hills, interspersed with
variegated sandstone cliffs, shone resplendent in the sun-
shine. The hill-summit belongs to Mr. Tung, and upon it
some ten years since they opened a stone-quarry. The
people, fearing for their “Feng-shui,” remonstrated, and
entered suit against the Tung family in the local magistrate’s
Ya-men, After long delays, profitable only to the magistrate,

The Yin and the Yang 147

a compromise was effected, the Tung family receiving a
round sum, in return for which they guaranteed, on behalf of
themselves, their heirs, and assigns, henceforth to leave the
“Vin” or Dark, z.e. the underground, undisturbed, and to
make use only of the “ Yang,” or Bright, z.e. the surface por-
tion of their property. I may add, that in making the stone-
quarry, they destroyed three of the artificial cave-dwellings
which abound throughout the sandstone cliffs of Szechuan,
leaving one intact as a specimen and a cool summer retreat.
These caves were inhabited by the Aboriginals or Miaotse,
or, as the Chinese here say, by the Man-tze, who occupied
the whole of this and the neighbouring provinces of Kwei-
chow and Yiinnan before they were gradually driven out by
Chinese immigrants from the north and east, about two
thousand years back. The public generally are now warned
not to touch the “yin” of this hill, in a lengthy proclamation
deeply engraved in red and gold characters on three massive
black stone slabs enclosed in a kind of stone archway,
which is built by the side of the road just outside my host’s
door. I brought away with me a rubbing of this proclama-
tion for careful examination at my leisure, and which I think
of sufficient interest, as showing the nature of the belief
of Féng-shui, to warrant my giving a translation of the
document. I must premise that my hosts are members of
an old Catholic family, which fact might be thought to pre-
judice the people against them; but they themselves do not
admit that this was the cause of their molestation. However
it be, there is no doubt that Féng-shui, as indeed is super-
stition in all countries, is a powerful weapon in the hands of
the malevolent, and an obstacle to all works of progress in
this benighted land. (See note at the end of this chapter.)
Beyond is a large enclosure reaching to the top of the hill,
in which is the grave of my host’s. father. In front is a

148 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

handsome terrace bounded by two obelisks about thirty
feet high, surmounted by lions, and on the terrace three
stone tables surrounded by stone stools, all carved in
facsimile of their ordinary wooden prototypes. This is
curiously the case with all stonework in China: triumphal
arches, parapets, balustrades—all imitate the woodwork, to
which architecture was exclusively limited originally, as this,
in its turn, still takes its outlines from the earlier tent of the
Nomad. These stone seats and tables are used when the
relatives of the deceased visit the tomb to burn incense and
offer rice to the Manes, and make a sort of picnic for the
occasion. The enclosure was planted with cypress, the
pointed cones of which represent the brush used in Chinese
writing—and hence literature. My host was careful to
point out to me the admirable “ Féng-shui” of the tomb.
Facing a reach of the great river confined between steep
hills some five hundred feet below, up which the tomb looks
lengthways, the angle of the river, where it turns short off to
the left, being hidden in the slope of the hill in the immediate
foreground, all the water seen is ‘‘ approaching” (“ Lai-shui”),
bringing, as it were, blessings to the inhabitants, and so to
his posterity. Yet my same host, who had been thus care-
ful of the site of his own father’s grave, had not hesitated to
outrage the “ Féng-shui” of his neighbours—the good people
of Chung-king—by burrowing into their “Serpent’s neck.”
For the: city of Chung-king represents a tortoise, and on it,
or round it, is coiled a snake. According to the Chinese,
these two species live together—an absurd belief, which,
however, I have never been able to shake, and the preva-
lence of which the subjoined extract from a local English
newspaper published at Shanghai testifies. Thus, a corre-
spondent at T’ai-yuen (General Mesney) writes: “ March,
1883.—The Chinese generally assert that snakes and

Snake and Tortoise friendship 149

tortoises cohabit ; and I have seen paintings of turtles and
tortoises, and metal castings also, with a snake wound about,
the emblem of strength and longevity; and, on inquiry, I
have always been told the same story—that it was the only
way of multiplying both species. Be that as it may, and let
naturalists say what they like, one thing I am certain of, and
that is—that one summer afternoon, whilst walking along the
banks of the Chung-ngan River, below Kwei-chow, on the
look-out for a carp for my dinner, I chanced to see a turtle
going across the clear stream, with its head out of the water,
some thirty.yards off. I directed my rifle towards the turtle ;
and when I had fired, a snake floated on the surface, cut in
two, and a turtle dived to the bottom and swam away out of
sight amongst the rocks. I guess his snakeship was just
taking a sort of saloon, or rather a deck passage, across the
Chung-ngan kiang by the turtle ferry.”

The day being hot, we sat about generally, saw the boys
with their tutor engaged in their monotonous, noisy
repetitions, and discussed the wonders of foreign countries.
In the evening we ascended a neighbouring height, on
which was the handsome grave ofa sister of my host, from
which we looked down a precipice some five hundred feet
sheer on to the romantic valley of the Siao Ho, which here mins
parallel to the main river, the land-neck between the two
rivers at this spot narrowing to two hundred yards in width ;
the city of Chung-king is situated where the peninsula on
which it is built widens out immediately above the cqnfluence
of the two rivers, which run in deep, narrow valleys between
steep sandstone cliffs. At this season of the year, with the
trees in full foliage and the crops nearly ready for harvest-
ing, the view is exceptionally beautiful.

The following is a translation of the inscription referred
to on page 147 :—

150 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

I, P’ENG, by imperial decree, bearing the insignia of the
second rank, acting salt transport commissioner, Intendant of
Circuit for the districts of Yung-chuen, Nanchuen, and Tung-
hiang in Szechuen; Governor of the Prefectures of Chung-king,
Kwei-chow, Sui-ting, Chung-chow, Chui-chow, and Shihsien :
advanced in office five steps ; the possessor in person of three
orders of merit ; the recorded holder of ten honorific degrees :—
do hereby issue a prohibitory proclamation upon a case deposed
before me.

Whereas Siao Ju-lan, an official of the second grade holding
brevet rank, Li Mao-lin, an official of the third degree; Lo
Yuen-yi, decorated with the peacock’s feather ; the bachelor
Wang Ting-chang; the bachelor Chin teh-chun; the literary
graduate Lin Tao-wo ; the Tung-che and deputy magistrate in
Hu-peh, Chen Chi-chang ; the Tung-che Li Chiu, decorated
with the peacock feather; Li Shen-hai and Yeh Wen-siang,
officials of the fourth rank ; the sub-prefects Hoang Pang-jung,
Lui Wen-yi, Liu Yung-sheng, and Yang Tao-chuen ; the deco-
rated officers, Yao Tsun, Wang Yin-ting, Tang Sheng-tze, Wang
Ching-san, Cho Shih-yung, Wang Ta-tze, Chu Ming-hoai, Cho
Tso-yi, Kuo Wei-hang, and Chang Shuo-shu respectively, have
petitioned, saying—

We, the graduates detailed above, strongly urge the issue of
a prohibitory proclamation with a view to cherish and aid the
affairs of the locality, the circumstance being as follows :—

Outside the South of Ue (Chung-king), outside the Kee
(history) gate, and below the citadel of Fu-tu koan (four miles
distant), is a place called Ngo hsiang-ching (goose’s neck),
joining the hamlet of Shih ma tsao (stone horse manger). Now
having investigated the records, we find that this place is in
truth the spot whence exudes the pulse (ze. in which are the
water-sources) of Fu-tu Koan, and verily forms the throat of
the district of Ue (Chung-king), by virtue of which scholars
abound, the people flourish, and merchants and traders are
attracted to the place, whereby all are mutually benefited
together. Now we have further investigated the ancient
records of the province and find it therein stated that—“ A
certain Li yan once purposed to open this ground and so
penetrate the two waters (watershed) of Pei and Min, where-

Proclamation ve the Earth-pulse. 151

upon the Military Expectant, Chu-ko, declared that if this
ground be opened, the enclosure of Ue (Chung-king) would
lose its life-breath ; and it was consequently forbidden to touch
it. It is evident that Ngo hsiang-chin is a place of the
weightiest import, and must in nowise be injured: hence this
prohibition has continued in force from of old without change.”

But now one Tung has acquired this ground by purchase, and,
giving ear to the deceitful words of stonemasons, has quarried
this stone for the sake of inordinate gain. This has been going
on for some ten years, until the pulses of the place are being
sundered almost past remedy. And now, graduate and mili-
tary, merchants and traders, are steadily going down. So is the
business of the Tai-ping and Chaotien gates, which open on to
the two busiest quarters, growing duller and colder. Searching
into the cause, we find it clearly due to the wounding of the
ground pulse ; and, if a plan be not at once devised for repairing
it, what answer shall graduates, military merchants, and traders
receive? These several gentry see this plainly, and will not
stand by idle. They have therefore called together the scholars,
officials, traders, and merchants to consider the matter, and they
have unanimously agreed to contribute the needful funds and
to buy up Ngo hsiang-ching, and make of it a public ground, to
be called the Pei shan tang, or “ Cultivate virtue hall,” and so
nourish the Feng-shui. The aforesaid Tung having given his
willing consent, the deeds have been drawn up, the price agreed
on has been paid, and the transfer is accomplished.

Lest now in the lapse of time the matter should fall into
oblivion and the determination now arrived at be set aside and
not survive to distant times, which is a matter of weighty
import to this city, such as we dare not ourselves decide, we
have presented a petition to the Prefect and to the magistrate,
and now present the matter to the higher authorities for
decision, requesting them to issue a prohibitory edict to the
following effect, and to have it engraved on stone, that—“‘ On
the ground between Futu koan and Chiao men tung, improve-
ments, whether public or private, are henceforward prohibited
by proclamation, that it will not be permitted to disturb the
ground ; and the range of the ground extending up from Fu-tu
Koan down to Chiao men tung is closely bound up with the

152 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

inflowing pulses of the walls of Ue (book-name of Chung-king),
Henceforth, let no one touch this place either for the purpose
of public or private repairs. It is forbidden to quarry stone,
to burn kilns, or to open a ditch, that the ground pulse may be
cherished and handed down (intact) to all ages. Now, after
the issue of this proclamation, should any dare to disobey,
then it shall be the duty of the Elders and of the Petitioners
respectively, to point out their names and bring an accusation
against the offenders, notifying the magistrate to arrest them for
trial, when they shall in no case escape. Let all yield implicit
obedience and not disobey.” The proclamation on the right
(ze. is for general information).
Dated the eleventh year of the reign Tung-chih (1872).

This proclamation is thrice repeated in the same words on
three separate tablets of limestone, each being enclosed in a
heavy sandstone frame. ‘The three parallel proclamations
are issued by the Taotai (Intendant of Circut), Chefu
(Prefect), and Pahsien (Magistrate of the District of Pa, z.¢.
Chung-king) respectively.

( 153 )

CHAPTER VIII.

CHUNG-KING.

Return to town—Catholic and other missions—Visitors—The China
Inland Mission—Native post—A Taoist temple—The priests
hard-up—Chinese banks—An ephemeral town—Across the river
—The Catholic cathedral—Charming surroundings of the city—
Filth within—Dull evenings—Chess—Malt liquor—A_ public
garden—The walls—Slow progress of the missionaries.

ON our way back to the city on the following day, we
turned aside to visit an extensive garden occupying a
narrow glen overlooking the Sia Ho, in which are the
courtyards, temples, reception-rooms, fish-ponds, winding
stone paths, and rockwork mountains of the Kiangsi Guild-
hall, in Chinese, Ning Kiang Hui-kwan. The merchants
and traders from the distant provinces, assembled in the
larger commercial cities all over the empire, have each a
guild-house of their own in every important city. The
glen above is filled with groves of magnificent bamboos,
and the whole place is redolent of vegetation, and, notwith-
standing the sunshine, the air was close and damp, like that
of a hothouse. In picturesque spots, scattered about the
gardens, are handsome pavilions, where parties come to
“ drink wine,” z.e. to dine, and to “shwa,” ze. flaner. The
usual oranges, camellias, and azaleas filled every vacant

154 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

niche, besides numberless flowers, the names of which are
unknown to me.

Notwithstanding the hospitality of the Tung family, 1
was glad to leave Mien-hoa pu (the village where they
resided), as life in a Chinese country house, and, indeed,
in a town house also, is insufferably dull. When the scrolls
on the wall are exhausted, the enclosed courtyard becomes
monotonous, and to enjoy the view one has to go outside
into the street; and when I get up to go out, I am accom-
panied by such a retinue—my own two servants, as well
as those of my hosts, and the members of the family (male
only, dien entendu), that I could well sympathize with the
boredom of royalty. To be followed and stared at, even
by a respectful mob, destroys half the pleasure derived from
beautiful scenery. The weather, too, was very hot and close,
and moving resulted in much perspiration, while baths are
as much unknown to the modern Chinese as they were to
our own forefathers.

In the afternoon I called at the French Catholic estab-
lishment, situated in the Upper City (Shang pan cheng),
known as the Chen-yuen Tang, and was received by Pére
Vingot, the same bishop who entertained Blakiston’s party
in 1860, and whose characteristic letters are printed in
“ Five Months on the Upper Yang-tse.” The missionaries
occupy spacious premises, which are now being rebuilt.
Szechuan is the most promising field these missions possess,
there being in Chung-king close on four thousand converts,
and in the whole province nearly fifty thousand, mostly,
however, the descendants of families who were converted
by the original Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century.
This does not appear to be a great result of two centuries
of work, and of the efforts of some of the ablest men of the
Catholic priesthood, who are specially selected for China,

Various Names for God 155

there being over fifty in Szechuan alone; and I cannot but
agree with Pére Amand David, who doubts if China will
ever be Christianized, especially now that innumerable
different sects of Protestantism from Europe and America
have entered the field, and rendered confusion worse con-
founded to the naturally sceptical Chinese mind, The
Catholic and Protestant sects are looked upon by the
Chinese as different religions, and the contempt entertained
for missions is aggravated by the unfortunate disagreement
as to the translation of the word “God.” The Chinese of
all descriptions employ exclusively the word “ T’ien ” when-
ever allusion is made to the Supreme Being. This word
T’ien, which is also the common word for the material sky,
is the equivalent of our word “ Heaven ;” all saints and all
beings to whom prayer is offered, or of whom images are
constructed in the different temples, are under “ Heaven.”
To my mind, after many years’ conversational intimacy with
all classes of the Chinese, the common phrase of “ Pai
T’ien” is an exact equivalent of our ‘Worship God.” And
if the early missionaries had been content to stop there,
introducing the teachings of Jesus as that of a Prophet under
Heaven, they might have made as much progress with
Christianity as has been made with Buddhism—a religion
that has had a wonderful effect in softening the character of
the ancient Chinese. But wishing to personify ¢heiv God,
the Jesuit fathers invented a new name—“ T’len Chu,” or
“Lord of Heaven.” Then came the English, who in order
not to be identified with the Roman Catholics, took another
name for their God, namely, ‘“ Shang-ti,” meaning “ Supreme
Ruler” or Emperor. Later missionaries (American Baptist)
have adopted another title—‘ Chen Shen,” ze. “The True
Spirit,” thus by implication stamping all other spirits as
false, The natural result is that the Chinese say, “ Foreign

156 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

nations have each their deities, why not we ours? In any
case, T’ien is above all; and whether the relation of inferior
deities to High Heaven be that of Sonship or Motherhood”
(latterly the Catholics have started separate Shéng-Mu, zc.
Mother of God Temples), “ or anything else, can never be
exactly ascertained, and is consequently a matter of indiffer-
ence to every thoughtful and educated person.” No one
can doubt that the Chinese would be all the better for
accepting the teachings of the Great Founder of our Western
religion: what I do doubt is whether the spending of so
much competitive energy and money does not rather repel
educated Chinese instead of leading them to respect Christ’s
teaching.

It is one thing to convert African savages or Polynesian
fetish worshippers, and another thing to spend millions of
money in attempting to convert Chinese who possess an
ancient and admirable system of ethics of their own, adul-
terated, it is true, by many foolish superstitions. But who
is competent to decide where religion ends and superstition
begins? The riots and consequent massacres resulting
from mission-work throughout Indo-China may be justified
by the end; but it is certain our relations with the Chinese
would be far more cordial than they are, were our diploma-
tists not engaged in a ceaseless struggle with the Chinese
Government in order to compel the people, zolens volens,
to respect and accept missionaries of all denominations and
with endless idiosyncracies. This leads the Chinese to
regard “missionaries as political agents, and will always
prevent their being cordially welcomed by the ruling classes.
Further, how can the Chinese reconcile the treatment
they have received at the hands of Christian nations as an
example of the superior ethics of Christianity ?

My evenings in the hong where I am staying were spent

Establishing a Business t57

in holding a levée of Chinese visitors, while seated in state
on the dais at the head of the reception-hall. At times we
played Chinese chess, which is a favourite amusement with
the youth of this establishment—a game differing from
Indian chess chiefly in the addition of two pieces called
“cannon,” which only check when a third piece intervenes
between them and their object. This serves to pass away
the time during the dim gloom of a Chinese house from
sunset till bedtime. At nine, Shao-yeh (literally, small
night) or supper is eaten. This is another characteristically
Chinese pastime. By the light of the oil-lamp we peck with
our chop-sticks at a few miniature dishes of cold onions,
minced leeks, cold peas and beans flavoured with vinegar
and soy, apricot and melon-seeds, all which serve as a zest
to numerous sups of mild, hot rice-wine—a kind of beer
fermented from the glutinous rice. Sam-shu, or distilled
spirit, on the other hand, is generally made from millet-seed.

As I was about to establish a mercantile business of my
own in Chung-king, which was not formally opened as
a treaty port until eight years later, I called on the local
officials—the Tao-tai, or Intendant of Circuit, and the Pa-
hsien, the local magistrate—to notify them of my intended
stay. I found them very communicative and pleasant, and
discussed with them the possible opening of the port. The
latter afterwards sent me a proclamation, to be posted on the
wall of my hong, consisting of a preamble citing the Tientsin
Treaty, by virtue of which British subjects have a right to
visit the interior for purposes of trade and residence, and
exhorting the people to deal fairly with and not to crowd
or molest me. The proclamation was hardly needed, for
the Szechuan officials and people seem to form an exception
to the rest of China in being favourably disposed towards
foreign intercourse,

1538 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

I afterwards called, by invitation, on the China Inland
Mission, one of whose chief stations is in this city. This
mission is English, and, apart from my commiseration
for people forced to live like poor Chinamen, it is
always pleasant to meet one’s fellow-countrymen in distant
parts, and I was delighted to go and see them. The
members of this mission, male and female, all adopt the
Chinese dress. They rent extensive and rather dilapidated
Chinese buildings in the upper and more open portion of
the city, and have boys’ and girls’ schools, besides religious
services, Their converts are as yet but few; but these
earnest missionaries are, as they say, satisfied to sow the seed,
and leave the harvest to a Higher Power. It must be dis-
heartening work thus trying to convert the very poor, whose
motives in changing their religion can never be trusted ;
while, as a rule, the upper classes in China disdain all inter-
course with them.

I was accompanied in my rounds to-day by an obliging
volunteer guide. He astonished me, however, in reply to
the usual questions, by telling one magistrate he was a
native of Chili; another, that his province was Shantung ;
while he was, I believe, really a native of Shansi. I asked
him afterwards what was his object in thus concealing his
birthplace. He replied it was well not to let the officials
know too much. No one who has not been in China (in
Shanghai and Hong-kong the whole tone is too European
to learn anything really about the natives) can form any idea
of the labour to be gone through to gain an exact know-
ledge of the simplest fact.

The forwarding of letters by post between the treaty
ports is now (1898) a monopoly of the foreign Customs, but
the bulk of the inland postage is still carried on by private
native organizations. During my visit to Chung-king, in

ooh e we
slate Sy

cae

Graves on Range of Hills opposite Chung-king: the two ‘‘ Characters” cut
in the Limestone indicate that this Mountain is a Reproduction of the
Sacred '‘ Mount T'v” in Shantung Province (p. 158). [To face p. 158.

Lao-tse, the Sage 159

1883, the time occupied by overland courier was, from
Ichang five days, and from Hankow fourteen days. The new
Customs couriers are half as long again on the journey, owing,
so say the foreign Customs’ officials, to the increase in the
mail matter.

The couriers make the whole journey on foot over the
goat-paths of the intervening mountains, They are necessarily
men of wonderful endurance ; they will do forty miles a day
over rough ground for days together, going at a sort of jog-
trot all the way. Between Ichang and Shanghai the mails
are, of course, carried by the foreign steamers,

Several ferries cross the river at Chung-king, occupying
half an hour or one hour for the half-mile transit, according
to the strength of the current. The principal ferry lands are
at the foot of the paved path which leads over the mountains
to the adjoining province of Kwei-chow and to Kwei-yang
Fu, its capital, distant twelve days’ joumey, each of ninety
li, say twenty-five miles. The road crosses the steep range
of hills, 1200 feet high, which faces Chung-king ; and thence
runs through a continuously mountainous country. Being a
main artery of the empire, the road is some five feet wide,
and evenly paved with stone flags. A steady ascent, partly
by long staircases, leads to a spot where the road forks, a
side path taking one up one of the peaks, between which the
main highway passes. This, the left peak, is finely wooded,
and on it are scattered the temples and pavilions known as
* Tao-chiin Tung,” or The Cave of the Sage Lao-tse. On
the other and loftier peak stands a pagoda—p’u-ing, or
supplementing, the Feng-shui of Chung-king—from which is
a splendid view over the steep mountainous country which
embraces the city on this side.

Lao Chiin, or, as he is commonly designated, Laotse
(the old philosopher), was the reputed author of the

160° Through the YVang-tse Gorges

“Tao teh King ”—classic of the path and virtue; he lived
in the sixth century B.c., and was thus a contemporary of Con-
fucius, who is said to have visited him and to have been
overwhelmed by his mystical insight. Lao-tse disappeared
in the west after writing his Tao teh King, but it is highly im-
probable that he ever visited Szechuan, at that period a
wilderness in possession of wild aboriginal tribes. The
present. Taoist religion, with its magic rites and interminable
ceremonial worship, is a sad travesty of Lao-tse’s pure
doctrine—not, unfortunately, an isolated instance of the
corruption that has perverted the original teaching of a Great
Founder. Lao-tse is reported to have dwelt in the cave near
the summit, from which exudes a fine spring of water. The
temples are spacious and handsome, the usual terraces and
flights of steps with fine stone balustrades uniting the various
sanctuaries. From the main terrace one looks over the silver
streak of the river and the city, which, though built on a
perpendicular walled sandstone bluff rising to 250 feet above
the river, from here appears flat, to the distant range, some
3000 feet above the river, which protects Chung-king on the
north. Lao-chiin Tung is a great summer resort of the
festive Chung-kingites ; but times here, as elsewhere, are bad,
and economy has to be studied in “shwa”-ing as in other
things, so that the priests, seventeen in number, complained
bitterly that they could not cover their expenses. There are
a number of Catholic converts about here whose mites are
diverted from the local deities, going to swell the fund from
which the distractingly ugly white-washed churches, affected
by missionaries, are built. Meanwhile the beautiful old
temples, with their cool halls and shady gardens, and every
aspect which art and nature can combine to soothe the brain,
weary of the outer world, are falling into decay. Even their
rich, deep, quiet-sounding bells are being slowly removed by

Native Banking Corporation 161

the barbarian curio-collector, to be replaced by the dis-
cordant jingle of the chapel adjacent. How often in some
quiet, wooded valley have I heard the deep bell sounded
with a single stroke at long intervals, of some Buddhist
shrine calling to vespers, and rested from my walk and
watched the worshippers and smoking incense! “ Vicist
Galilea-!” I feel inclined to say, with the old Roman stoic.
As a nineteenth-century European, I say, “ Why cannot the
exalted teachings of Jesus be grafted upon the results of
previous struggles towards a better life, instead of being
antagonistic to and destroying them?”

In any case, the priests of Lao-chiin Tung are hard put
to it for a living. A coal-mine had undermined their chief
temple, and the resultant lawsuit, decided against them, has
impoverished them. This is the first place, too, of the kind
where I have been openly asked for money. Not having
anticipated such a long excursion, I had not brought my
coolie, and consequently had no purse-bearer with me (a
shilling’s worth of copper cash weighs a pound and a half).
They had regaled me with the usual tea and hubble-bubble,
and were somewhat put out at my having nothing to give
them.

On another occasion I returned the call of the manager
of the Chang-sing-tung Bank, “‘ Chao” by name, and stayed
to breakfast, at which small wheaten loaves and vermicelli
soup, besides “ fahtsai”—hair-herb, a very fine-cut seaweed
from Japan—being served, I enjoyed the repast more than
usual. ‘This is the chief Shansi bank and hong here: it has
existed for 270 years, the chief managing the business from his
native place, T’ai-yuen-Fu, in Shansi. These are the most
respectable and strictly managed businesses in the empire ;
their branches extend to every important city in the eighteen

provinces, and their staff numbers several hundreds. I asked
M

162 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

him how he accounted for one firm remaining in existence
for nearly three centuries. He replied, “ Our rule is strict.
Our inside staff are all from Shansi; they are apprenticed,
live in the hong, and are never allowed out after nine at
night.” He said the southern mercantile establishments
are more lax. These Shansi banks grant drafts for large
sums upon their branches scattered all over the empire, and
it is wonderful how, with the slow intercommunication, they
manage their finances as they do.

Another day I started for a stroll along the foreshore
below the walls. I left the city by the nearest gate, the
“ T’ai-ping Men,” or “ Gate of Peace,” and descended 240
filthy steps crowded with water-carriers going up, and mal-
odorous manure-carriers going down, each with two heavy
buckets slung across the shoulders by a heavy bamboo
carrier—the “ pien tan,” or “convenience carrier,” in use
from Penang to San Francisco and wherever Chinese
congregate. All the water used in the city is carried up
from the river, through the different gates, by poorly-paid
coolies, who get from four to five ‘‘ cash ”—a farthing—for
a load of two large buckets. I reached the beach, now dry
and crowded with shanties, shops, opium-dens, wood and
coal stores, all of which will have to be removed a month
hence, when the river makes another big rise. I noticed
two gigantic isolated rocks standing on the sandbank ; these
had dropped out of the cliffimmediately beneath the city wall,
a slice of which fell down later one stormy night, carry-
ing with it several adjoining houses and their unfortunate
inhabitants. According to local information—not always
reliable—these rocks fell down three winters back. The
larger is a rough cube of about fifty feet, a considerable
portion having been already quarried away, its position on
the water's edge being very convenient, and the rock a

The Racing Foreigner 163

compact, homogeneous, grey sandstone. Here, on the south-
west side of Chung-king, the river-bed widens out, forming
a huge sand and boulder bank in the middle, with a wide
channel on each side, called the “Shan-hu Pa,” or “Coral
Strand,” the summit of which is cultivated for a space of
about one square mile, and sustains several farms and
cottages, which have to be removed every year in order to
escape the summer floods, when the whole island, now
thirty feet out of water, is submerged. The summit of this
bank is the only level spot of ground I have yet met with
in Eastern Szechuan. I walked for nearly a mile along its
edge, until the loose boulders, about the size of cricket-balls,
became too much for me. I may mention that I had chosen
this uncomfortable path as a means of escape from the large
crowd of gamins who had taken to following me. The
“ Wa-wa’rh,” as the children are called in the friendly
language of Szechuan, who had collected to the number of
some hundreds, were amusing themselves shouting at the
top of their voices, “Yang jen p’ao ma’l,” z.e. “See the
foreigner galloping on his horse!” I afterwards found out
that this cry (any rallying-cry for a mob) originated in a
peep-show of the Shanghai races, which had been recently
exhibited by an itinerant showman, and which had excited
the sportive minds of the Chung-king youth, to whose bare
feet I had hoped the stones would prove a barrier. But it
was not so, and I only eluded them by jumping into a
sampan, and ordering myself to be set across the river. A
tremendous shout arose from the assembled Wa-wa’rh as
this feat was happily accomplished.

In crossing to the-other side, we were carried down nearly
a mile by the five-knot current, but almost regained the lost
ground by running up in the eddy on the opposite shore, which
leads to the small but dangerous rapid formed by a ledge of

164 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

rocks, that here juts out from the right bank and obstructs
the channel. A large junk, oil laden, had been wrecked
here a few days before, and her hull had been towed into
shoal-water, where she was floating with the decks gone.
The cargo of oil-tubs, made of plaited bamboo lined with
bamboo-paper, was stowed on the bank, with the crew
comfortably housed alongside to guard it under an awning
made from the sail. Landing, I climbed up the steep hill-
side, and finding a newly-made grave, with comfortable stone
seats, just erected on a prominent knee of the hill, I sat
down in the hot sunshine to rest and to enjoy the view.
From whichever point you regard the city of Chung-king,
the view is one full of interest, each aspect forming a new
picture of rock, river, wood, and temple, crenellated battle-
ments, and uplifted roofs, crowded with bewildering detail
which the photograph cannot do justice to. The view forms
one of the most perfect pictures of river and mountain
scenery, enlivened by human activity, that the world affords.

In Europe, excepting in purely wild scenery, and more
especially in America, the delight in gazing on many of the
most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the crude newness
of men’s work. This is now, unfortunately, the case even
in beautiful Japan—the home of estheticism—since the
rage for copying Western architecture and dress fell as a
blight on the islands of the rising sun. But here in the
far west of China, nothing has intervened to mar the accord
between Man and Nature. Féng-shui, in its best sense,
reigns supreme, and Man harmonizes with the soil as a
bird with the air and a fish with the water. The buildings
are all in keeping with the environment. Medieval Italy,
before the Renaissance, was much like China in this respect.
Man was in perfect harmony with Nature, and Nature seemed
to return Man’s love for her. This feeling, the foundation

fs

|
1
i
4
{

Dinner-party in Chung-king : Guests facing Theatrical Performance; Inter-

vening Courtyard, or ‘‘ Pit” filled with freely admitted Audience from the
Street (p. 200).

[To face p. 164.

Who love Nature, those Nature loves 165

of true eestheticism, leads the Chinese to resent our modern
innovations ; but the force of circumstances is slowly sub-
duing its expression, and the factory chimney and the
scream of the locomotive will ere long rejoice the Philistine
and be the despair of the Artist. Meanwhile, let us enjoy our
short return to the era of the Middle Ages, and profit by the
possibility of realizing the life of our ancestors in the “ good
old times.” The hoary battlements which wall in the
crowded city seem a natural excrescence on the rugged
cliffs, and as the city walls follow the sinuosities of hill and
dale, there is no sign of that strife with Nature which our
bold Western methods encourage. No braggart upstart
building towers rudely above its neighbours, stealing their
air and light. The temples and Ya-méns are the only
buildings more conspicuous than the mass, the former dis-
tinguished by their green and gold porcelain tiles, the latter
by their two quaint flagstaffs—phallic emblems, according
to Baber,—very different from the bare poles and square-
cut flags of the West. Were such an outrage as are the
Queen Anne Mansions to London, to be attempted here,
the Dragon and Tortoise (in the shape of an infuriated
mob) would rise from their sleep of ages, and overthrow
the ill-omened erection until not one brick was left on
another. The first display of ill-feeling towards foreigners
ever manifested in this city was due to the action of the
Roman Catholic missionaries. Profiting by the avarice of
the few old surviving priests left in possession, and to whom
the trust of this ancient benefaction had devolved, they
succeeded in acquiring, as a site for their cathedral, a
prominent sandstone bluff, about two acres in extent, which
occupies a commanding position in the centre of the city,
and upon which stands a very ancient Taoist temple. The
people rose ex masse, and undoubtedly the lives of the

166 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Christians and of their priests would have been sacrificed,
had the latter not consented at the last moment to grant
the request of the officials, and accept another equally
valuable, but less conspicuous and Féng-shui-disturbing site
on lower ground.

In 1885 there was another rising in Chung-king, due this
time to the action of the American Methodist mission. Not
content with the native building in which I found them,
this mission also had secured for itself a magnificent and
strikingly conspicuous site on the neck of the Chung-king
peninsula, and commanding the valleys of both rivers, upon
which to erect a more imposing edifice. The mob rose,
and the disturbance was only quelled after several lives had
been sacrificed.

The movement on the river, too, is in harmony with its
surroundings. Favoured by a fine fresh up-river breeze,
the quaintly shaped junks, each with a single square-cut
bellying mainsail, make almost imperceptible progress
against the rapid stream. Though under sail, they are still
attached by an invisible thread to the shore, and a gang of
trackers, ascending and descending the rocky path along
the slope of the ravine, may just be traced about a quarter
of a mile ahead of each toiling craft.

The amphitheatre of hills, which encircle the peninsula
on which Chung-king stands, and at the foot of which flows
the wide deep stream of the Yang-tse, are thickly sprinkled
with farmhouses and villages, distilleries and small manu-
factories. Unlike the hill-ranges which rise from the plains
of the lower river, stark and bare, shunned as a habitation
and unused for pasture, treeless and close-shorn by the
rapacious wood-cutters, treated as enemies, and looking
barren and forlorn in consequence ;—the Szechuen hills
are as freely and as fondly utilized as those surrounding a

L[nfusion of Western Energy 167

European city, and the country here has a peaceful, happy
aspect, totally wanting in the scenery further east. In the
Hu-peh plains the walled cities, at the foot of the naked
hills, rising abruptly out of the level plain, look like camps
pitched in a purposely devastated country, and the prospect,
though wild and romantic in the extreme, is deterrent and
uninviting. The street in which I lived in Chung-king was
distant not five minutes’ walk from the south wall of the
city, and ran level with its summit; often I used to adjourn
with my cigar, from the close hong to a seat on the battle-
ments, and gaze down on the ravine below and the suburbs
on the opposite shore. This, owing to the steep rocks, is
only accessible in three or four spots, and to these the
ferry-boats ply; to watch one of these specks, taking half
an hour to creep across, was a curious sight. What an
opportunity for steam-launches! Were free scope once
given for the infusion of Western energy and methods into
an active trade-loving people like the Chinese, China would
rival the United States in wealth and resources. The
pressure of Western population will ere long force the real
opening of the country, willy-nilly, on the mandarins,
and in the renewed activity of the people, no time will
be left for the exmui that drives the Chinese to the opium-
pipe.

Graceful and unique in appearance as is an inland
mountain city, when viewed from a distance, I regret to say
that, as with many a picturesque town in Southern Europe,
the charm of a Chinese city vanishes entirely on closer
acquaintance. Filth seems inseparable from Chinese hu-
manity, and a total apathy in regard to matter in the wrong
place, pervades all classes, from the highest to the lowest.
Gorgeous silks conceal an unwashed skin, and from under
the rich sable cuffs of the official, protrude finger-nails

168 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

innocent of soap or penknife. In spring-time the hard-
worked coolie doffs his wadded winter garments, and
parades his naked skin, happily unconscious of any dis-
grace attending the exhibition of the itch-sores which dis-
figure it. In the narrow crowded streets rain-storms are
the only scavengers, and if we look into the interiors, we
find the mud on the floors and the dust on the furniture
steadily accumulating, until the New Year brings round the
solitary annual house-cleaning. What, however, can be ex-
pected of a race who cripple their women, and incapacitate
the natural guardians of the home from all active exertion ?

During my stay I received many invitations to dinner-
parties. These are generally given in one of the dozen
spacious ‘guildhalls in the city, or in one of the many really
beautiful club-gardens in the surrounding country. One
party, given in the Canton guild-garden, had the most
exquisite setting for a banquet possible. The Canton
guild-gardens cover some two or three acres, all laid out
with paths winding between masses of rockwork and great
bouquets of flowers and flowering shrubs. A precipitous slope,
rising a few hundred feet and covered by a mass of fine
bamboos, forms the background, while the “little river ” flows
in front in its narrow valley an equal distance below. Spacious
houses with courtyards, solidly built and beautifully adorned
with wood and stone carving, marble floors, and wide
verandahs, form the chief reception-rooms, while elegant
smaller pavilions are scattered about the grounds, so ar-
ranged as to secure perfect privacy to each party of visitors.
For the hot weather, caves have been excavated in the soft
sandstone rock, which are much affected by the Chinese as
being cool and draughtless. These “halls” are mostly
owned in shares by a group of friendly families, and form
in fact institutions analogous to our clubs; they differ,

A walk through Chung-king 169

however, in that families are admitted, and that the host
brings his own cook and provisions.

Another morning early, I received a call from a gentleman
named Ting, who offered his services as cicerone in the
event of my desiring to “Shwah” in the neighbourhood.
This word Shwah, which means to play, is constantly in the
mouths of the festive Chung-kingites. “ Hao shwa”—good
to play—is a recommendation that led me to visit many a
local celebrity. On the present occasion, our ten-o’clock
breakfast over, I set out with friend Ting to walk round the
city walls, a distance of about six miles. Starting from the
Tai-ping gate, along the wide-paved roadway to the summit
of the wall, we have on our left the crenellated battlements,
through which the swift-flowing river is seen two hundred
feet below; while on the right is an interminable line of
drug-dealers’ stores, their fronts open to the road, and the
whole air redolent with the heavy fragrance of Chinese
medicines, a mélange apparently of rhubarb, liquorice-root,
orris-root, lovage (Radix Levistici), and musk. Turning to
the right, and leaving the river to the left, we ascend the
broad, paved surface of the wall by long flights of steps
following its sinuosities as it ascends the crest of the ravine,
which on this side also drops perpendicularly from its
flanks. We here visited the Ti-shin Tang, a convivial
and benevolent institution, comprising a temple, a three-
storied pavilion, with green and yellow tiles covering its
steep, tent-shaped roof, a dead-house for the coffins of the
poor while awaiting burial, and the usual miniature gardens,
fish-ponds, and bridges, not omitting the rock caves, which
form a speciality in the pleasure-gardens of this city.
The view from the top of the pavilion, like that from every
eminence in the neighbourhood, afforded a fresh picture
of rock, river, and mountain, combined with wild-looking

170 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

battlements and curled temple-roofs. Passing the parade-
ground in the north-west angle of the wall, and upon which
some local volunteers were exercising with bows and arrows,
I stopped to look on, and was offered a trial-shot by one of
the citizen soldiers, I shot as far, but as wide of the mark
as any of the rest. My civil volunteer now begged me to
adjourn to his house and drink tea. We descended, and
entering the gateway in a high wall close by, I found myself
in an extensive nursery-garden, my host proving to bea florist.
Dwarf mandarin oranges, about the size of walnuts, com-
posed his principal crop. There was a fine show of other
flowers and sub-tropical shrubs in addition, all in their full
April bloom. The good wife hobbled in with the teapot,
and after a refreshing drink we again set forth on our
rounds. The angle of the wall is composed of a large
square, three-storied stone fort, loop-holed in three stories ;
but the wooden platforms, originally built to support the
marksmen in position, were, like all other Government
institutions in China, in a state of utter decay. Continuing
on along the inland wall, and parallel to the river, the
rising ground outside on our left a confused mass of
ancient grave-mounds, such as universally cover the hill-
sides surrounding a Chinese city, we wound on, up and
down, until we passed the door of the “ Ngai-teh Tang,” or
“Hall of the Lovers of Virtue,” in the courts of which I
had enjoyed a sumptuous feed on the previous day. After
passing, I found myself called back, and on turning round
I was surprised to find my late host advancing to meet
me. Some of the idlers or retainers, who throng the door-
ways of all the large Chinese houses, had informed him
of my presence. Mr. Wang was, my companion told
me, entertaining female guests, or Azglice, had a ladies’
party on; but I declined his invitation to come in and

The City of Kiang-peh ae

join them. I may here mention that Mr. Wang is a
member of one of the leading Catholic families of the
place, and that, kind as were all the Chung-king people
with whom I came in contact, there is no doubt that
bona-fide Christians, such as those, do entertain a fellow-
feeling towards us. From this point the wall, turning
eastwards, follows the crest of the ravine of the Siao Ho
(small river), or, as it is called in the maps, the Kia ling
river. This stream, which has its sources in Kansu and
Honan, has a deep and rapid current of about half the
bulk of the main river; but, unlike the latter, at the time
of my visit its waters were pellucid green. It separates
the city of Chung-king proper from its northern suburb
of “ Kiang peh Ting” (“City North of the River”). This
much-walled city is under the separate jurisdiction of a
“Ting,” intermediate in rank between a “Fu” and a
“Hsien.” The walled enclosure contains many picturesque
temples and official residences, the business suburb lying
below on the Yang-tse side, where there is a good natural
harbour, formed by a fine ledge of rocks, which divides
it from the main current. It is either here, or else at
Lung-mén Hao, across the main river and opposite the
Tai-ping Gate, that we find the best site for the Foreign
Concession, the opening of which Chung-king is now (in
1898) still anxiously awaiting.

Continuing our walk along the wall, with the deep valley
of the Siao River on our left, and the narrow, thronged streets
of the busy city immediately on our right, at a point where
the sandstone cliff falls perpendicularly some two hundred
feet, between the street and the battlements, stands the
spacious native residence which has just been purchased
for the American Methodist Mission. The large sum,
for these parts, of three thousand taels was the price paid,

172 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

and the buildings were in course of being Europeanized
into a suitable dwelling for the learned missionary, his*wife,
and three daughters, who have spread their tent in this
charming though remote site. This missionary work is
the greatest of the many problems propounded to the
Chinese by the presence of the barbarian in the Central
Flowery Land. From their point of view, it goes without
saying that all foreigners are enormously rich, and that
there are no poor in our favoured lands, or we should not
have money to spend in maintaining corps of missionaries
nearly as numerous as our merchants, and in subsidizing
outcast Chinese to forsake the family altars to “ féng chiao,”
or be “sealed” to a doctrine strange and incredible.
Chung-king possesses several Christian missions: the
American Methodist, the China Inland, the London
Mission, that of the Society of Friends, the Scotch and
American Bible Societies, and the Roman Catholic. The
latter is the oldest and most important, and its converts
in Chung-king alone number over three thousand. The
Catholic system, with its unconscious imitation of Bud-
dhistic forms, and its wise toleration of ancestral worship,
so called, appeals more forcibly than the others to the
ignorant and consequently superstitious Chinese; yet even
Catholicism is stationary, and exists mainly through the
prestige of its age and its extensive possessions. The
entrance of Protestantism into China, with its inquiring
and disputatious spirit, is proving fatal to the ingathering
of the harvest anticipated by devout Catholics as the result
of two centuries of toil in this ungrateful land. As in the
West, the door once opened to doubt, dogmatic Christianity
seems doomed. And it must not be supposed that, to
quote one of the many false impressions derived from
missionary reports, the Chinese are so steeped in materialism

Christ and Confuctus 173

as to be callous in regard to moral teaching, and hence to
be dependent on Western charity for their spiritual food.
Hortatory works urging men to reform their lives are
perpetually being circulated by benevolent individuals, in
addition to which the people are stimulated by open-air
exhortations by paid preachers. A common sight in Chung-
king in the evening, after the day’s work is over and the
shops are closed, is an elevated stand at the street corner,
consisting of a raised table draped in red cloth; upon it
two flaring red candles, and behind it a man in full cere-
monial dress, with the stiff official hat and silk ma-kwa,
addressing the crowd. At first sight one would, but for his
careful costume, take the man for a story-teller, surrounded
as he is by a group of silent listeners, until, on a nearer
approach, you find he is expounding the doctrine of the
native classics, and exhorting men to repentance. No nation
has so many wise saws and moral maxims always at its
fingers’ ends as the Chinese; scarcely a sentence but is
interlarded with a proverb or a text from the ancient sages.
That a people so generally well read as are the Chinese,
and possessing in the teachings of Confucius a doctrine which,
unlike Christianity, has survived unquestioned throughout
all the wars and commotions of twenty-five centuries; to
expect that a people so unemotional and so eminently
practical in the application of their ethics to the wants of
daily existence, should ever pin their faith to a work like
the historical books of the Old Testament, seems to a
layman a hopeless conclusion. That the Chinese fail to
live up to their standard is only to say that they are human.
Their civilization, not long since, so far before all others,
has failed to keep pace with ours; but so have their physical
and mental faculties. If they are ever to be raised to our
level, it will be by secular contact with the West during

174 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

many more generations. One of the most accomplished
men that has ever visited the country, a traveller and a man
of science as well as a missionary—the well-known Abbé
David—in a chapter on the missions of Kiangse, the most
thoroughly worked province in the occupation of the Lazarists,
sums up his judgment in the following pertinent remarks,
which I venture to quote in full :—

“Je mets fin 4 ma digression sur les missions du Kiangsi, en
ajoutant: (1) qu’il faut & la Compagnie de Jésus la justice de
reconnaitre que c’est 4 des missionnaires de leur active société,
que la plupart des anciennes chrétientés des parties de la Chine,
que j’ai visitées ont eu leur origine ; (2) que, les chrétiens de tout
Vempire ont été autrefors plus nombreux gwils ne le sont
maintenant.

“ Pour ne parler que de cette province, j’entends dire qu'il n’y
a pas une ville qui n’ait eu jadis sa ou ses chapelles chrétiennes,
mais actuellement on ne compte guére en Chine, qu’un fidéle
par mille paiens. Et bien que, dans toutes les dix-huit pro-
vinces, il y ait 4 présent des conversions de plus en plus nom-
breuses, mon opinion est, que la christianisation générale de ce
peuple, si jamais elle doit s’effectuer, ne peut s’attendre que
dans un avenir trés éloigné encore, surtout depuis que la facilité
progressive de circuler et de s’établir dans l’intérieur de l’empire
y attire de plus en plus les prédicateurs de toutes les sociétés
dissidentes.

“Cette déplorable divergence dans l’enseignement et dans la
pratique du Christianisme est pour les Chinois un seminarium
@indiférence, parce qu’ils s’habituent a croire que chacune des
nations occidentales a sa réligion particuliére; et ils pensent
qwils sont raisonnables eux-mémes en conservant la leur. C’est
14 une conséquence qui vient naturellement a l’esprit des hommes
qui ne veulent et qui ne peuvent pas étudier pertinemment la
question réligieuse.”

We left the ramparts and turned off into the town, and,

after walking fast through the maze of narrow dirty streets,
Mr. Ting landed me somewhat unexpectedly in a spacious

flow to learn Chinese 175

mansion of many courts, which turned out to be his family
residence. Here I was introduced to his three sons, who
were, together with half a dozen young cousins, all engaged
with the schoolmaster, and as usual shouting, each his own
lesson, at the very top of their voices. In this way the texts
of the four sacred books are learnt by rote, and remain
indelibly impressed on the memory for ever afterwards:
their meaning is expounded later. Absurd as this system
may seem, I am convinced that there is no other method
equally efficacious for fixing the innumerable characters of
this cumbrous language on the mind. One of the youngsters
brought us eggs, boiled and floating in a bowl of hot water,
which, but that it was unaccompanied by bread, was no bad
refreshment after our long walk. Another mile through the
crowded streets brought us to the Peh-hsiang Kai, or White
Elephant Street, in which was situated the business establish-
ment of my companion—a sugar refinery—where I was
introduced to the father, a. hale old man approaching
seventy, who appeared to be actively engaged superintending
the work, which was being carried on upon a large scale, but
with the usual primitive methods.

176 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

CHAPTER IX.
CHUNG-KING.

Ponies—Silk-weaving—Prehistoric caves—A fine country-house—A
Catholic chapel—A Buddhist oracle—The coal workings—Cost
of getting and transporting coal—An eviction scrimmage—
Ventilation—A huge coal-field—A farm-house—Opium-smoking
—Agile ponies—Return by boat—Fine scenery—Legends—The
river rising—Trade Guilds—Another country-house—Civility of
the Chung-kingese—The women’s feet-—The Manchus—A pseudo-
European dinner,

Ar eight o’clock on the morning of the eighteenth April,
friend Tung and his nephew arrived with three small shaggy
ponies, one of which, a well-conditioned little animal
standing about twelve hands, and a native of the neighbour-
ing province of Kwei-chow, was destined for myself. My
hosts had put a Miao-tse saddle on him. This, like all
saddles in China, was made of wood, but it was covered with
heavy carved lacquer, precisely like the celebrated Soochow
ware. A wadded quilt, topped with a foreign blanket,
succeeded, however, in shielding this showy but uncomfort-
able piece of furniture from the public gaze, as well as from
the rider's person. A crowd assembled to see us off; we
were soon mounted, and trotted off gaily down the slippery
street. My little animal being the best goer, I was requested
to take the lead. My natural inclination to walk through

Hoangko Shu, and /Yeus infectoria with Shrine as usual round Roots, and my Stallion from Province Kwei-chow,

[To face p. 176.

with whom I travelled 1500 Miles,

A Suburban Road. I77

the narrow crowded streets was overcome by my companions
urging me to hurry on, as we were due at Shih-ma Tsao,
my host’s home, where breakfast was awaiting us, at nine
o’clock. The collar of bells, with which all Chinese riders
surround their ponies’ necks, warns. the foot-passengers
to stand aside, while their merry jingle gives a sense of
speed and adds to the festive air of the cavalcade. We
passed out of the north gate, descending by a winding stair-
case, narrowed by the encroachments of the shops and
booths bordering on it, to a width of barely six feet. It
was covered with black grime as usual, all the water used in
the city being carried out by these gates. My wonderful
little nag scrambled down without accident, though not
without considerably alarming its rider. This descent of
about 150 steps led us on to a terrace, a sort of cornice-road,
shaded by many fine old banyan trees; the rushing water
being below on our left, and steep, treeless, grave-covered
hills on our right. The old stone parapet had fallen down
in places, and I was not sorry when we turned off inland
into the hills, along the road that I had previously traversed
in achair. The traffic on this road is very great, but it is
well regulated by the all-pervading custom, and difficulties
seldom or never occur. Thus, everything gives way to
chairs, pedestrians to horsemen, and the toiling carrying-
coolies to all: where the path is narrow these unfortunates
have to step down into the neighbouring paddy-field, and
strings of them had often to stand aside in this way while
our cavalcade went by. Each of our ponies had its own
mafu, or groom, in attendance, besides which we had two
porters with our luggage: my pony was the property of our
host, but the others were hired animals, the price being 180
cash (9@.) per diem, including the mafu, who supplied his
charge with fodder cut from the wayside at our halts. This
N

178 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

will give an idea of the astonishing cheapness of life in
this favoured province. An hour’s hot ride brought us to
“Shih-ma Tsao” (“Stone-Horse Crib”) and the residence
of the Tungs. The ride in the morning sun had been a hot
one, and we were glad to rest in the cool courtyard of the
house. Breakfast was soon announced, at which my hosts
drank freely the hot wine, while I confined myself to tea:
my want of “ wine-power” (chiu-liang) being a sad defect in
the Chinese eyes. It was nearly eleven before we made a
second start. We passed over a short ‘col,’ being the neck
of the serpent whose beneficent folds envelope the city land-
wards, while the opposing tortoise, in the shape of a
projecting crag on the opposite shore, completes the Feng-
shui and causes the prosperity of Chung-king; and soon
found ourselves approaching Fu-tu Kwan, or the barrier of
Fu-tu, which is a small walled city or fortress, commanding
the one land-road by which Chung-king is in communication
with the outer world. Its walls embrace the outlines of a
lofty scarped sandstone knoll, one of the many remnants
of the old sandstone plateau which must, at one time, have
covered the face of Eastern Szechuan. We ascend to the
gate by a steep slanting staircase up which my little pony
scrambles bravely, and ride through the fort. Its interior is
occupied by the usual narrow streets and mean houses
of a country town, but no trace of guns or garrison is
to be seen. Emerging on the west, we descend by another
staircase, and proceed along the great western road which
leads to Chéng-tu, the provincial capital.

This road leads up and down over a steeply undulating
country, the hills being all richly cultivated to their summits.
The chief crops at this season were opium and tobacco,
the poppy predominating. In the narrow gullies minute
paddy-fields descend in terraces, and occupy the limited

Riding down Staircases 179

amount of level ground to be found in the valley bottoms.
The upper sides of these gullies often consist of vertical rocks,
and where the road runs along their summit, or has been
cut into them, it has in olden times been protected by a
handsome balustrade of stone, now ina sad state of disrepair,
and in the worse places often wanting altogether. My
diminutive steed entertained a most uncomfortable preference
for the extreme edge of the narrow pathway, the flagstones
of which, where not wanting altogether, invariably seemed to
slope outwards, The ascents ‘and descents were by narrow,
steep, dilapidated staircases. Originally constructed with an
utter absence of engineering skill, these paved footpaths
have been rendered still worse by the insidious encroach-
ments of the avaricious peasantry. After leaving the main
artery, the road got so bad that, but that there was positively
not room for me to dismount, I should on several occasions
have resigned the saddle and taken to my legs. Apart from
the risk of a fall, it seemed cruelty to animals to ridea
pony over such country; but on being assured that he
was accustomed to carry double my weight in goods over
the Kwei-chow mountains, I hardened my heart, and we
scrambled on. At length, in the afternoon, we reached our
destination for the day—the mansion of Sha-ping Pa (the
“Spreading Sandbank”). Heading our cavalcade over the
rugged paths, I had noticed on the slope of a hill to our
right a spacious walled enclosure with a broad terrace in
front, approached by a handsome flight of stone steps—a
noble residence, superior to anything yet encountered in my
travels in this dilapidated-land. I was not a little surprised
to learn that this was our destination, and I trotted gaily up
the steps, glad to escape from the blazing sunshine into the
umbrageous courtyards and gardens before me. I found
that this was the ancient home of the Tung family, now

180 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

exchanged for the more modest but convenient mansion of
Shih-ma Tsao; and that the Tungs had just sold this their
old home to their spiritual fathers, the Catholic mission at
Chung-king, by whom it was used as a rural retreat and new
mission centre. The place was unoccupied at the time of
my visit, save that in one of the numerous “ dependencies ”
a “ Chi-fang,” or silk-weaving establishment, was in operation.
The place was still being worked by the Tungs, who have a
shop for the distribution of their productions in the city of
Chung-king. The Chi-fang was a lofty brick and tiled
“ sodown,” containing some twenty looms, as well as spinning
gear. About a hundred men were at work; they were paid
by the piece, and earn about a hundred cash a day, in
addition to their rice. The goods produced are ofa very fair
quality, but their consumption is mainly confined to the
province. At the time of the Tai-ping Rebellion, however,
when the Hoochow silk country west of Shanghai was being
devastated by fire and sword, large quantities of this silk were
shipped eastwards, and an active business was done, and
large profits were made ; but Szechuan silk cannot compete
with that of Hoochow, and the trade is now in a languishing
condition. We took dinner with the foreman of the works—
a frugal meal of rice, beans, and pork—and then went for a
stroll with our guns. My friend Tung was an ardent sports-
man, and carried a Kwei-chow gun with a barrel nearly five
feet long, a bore about the size of a pea, and firing iron shot.
We beat up some of the groves surrounding the scattered
farms, and scrambled down the almost perpendicular bank
of the Siao river, here about six hundred feet high. The
country was lovely, and the waters of the rapid river, at this
season clear, and in the pools between the rock barriers
almost stagnant, afforded a delightful swim and a grand
entertainment to the rustics, Climbing the heights again by

An Archeological Find 181

the aid of a wooded gully, now dry, we sat down on a stone
seat overlooking the ravine, and situated scarcely a hundred
yards from the walls of Sha-ping Pa, and enjoyed the magnifi-
cent prospect before us. The Chinese, in their love of
privacy and retirement, never enjoy a view from the windows
of their own dwelling, except it be that of the miniature en-
closed gardens surrounding them, hence partly the oppressive
dulness with which they afflict a foreigner. The view
embraces the steep sandstone cliffs of the opposite bank of
the Kia-ling Ho, commonly called the Siao or Small River,
and in which were apparent some of the square openings of
the cave dwellings which abound throughout the rivers of
this province, and the exploration of which has been so
interestingly described by Mr. Baber. Behind us, from a
green, tree-covered mound, projects the corner of a huge
stone sarcophagus. This, my companion informed me, had
been opened in the night by the indefatigable “ Be-te-la”
(Baber), on the occasion of a visit he had made to Shaping
Pa. Mr. Baber was rewarded for his exertions by finding
nothing better inside than a layer of wet mould ; but a short
time previously the landlord of the place (my host) had
picked out from under the head of the lid a polished stone
axe-head of serpentine. This was handed over to Mr. Baber,
but in a damaged state, owing to the greed of the finder, who
had tried to break it open in expectation of finding gold
inside, the only possible object that, in the eyes of the Chinese,
can justify archeological research,

The country house in which we were resting was the finest
example of a Chinese residence I had yet visited, and merits
a short description. It was built in the last century by a
retired Fantai, or Provincial Treasurer, at a cost, I was told,
of ten thousand pounds. The enclosure occupies little over
four acres, and is surrounded by a stone wall ten feet high

182 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

and five feet thick. Within is the usual succession of court-
yards and lofty halls, with no upper story, the tiled roofs
supported by massive wooden pillars on stone bases, all
looking as fresh and brilliant as they did the day they were
putup. The walls are of brick, and the floors of stone. Each
court rises behind the other by a few steps, and at the back
of all is the scarped face of the rock, covered with ferns,
and surmounted by a bamboo grove, and from the face of
the rock spurts forth a refreshing stream, supplying the house
with spring water. Outhouses for servants, kitchen, and
stabling are on an extensive scale, and in front of the lowest
court, and between it and the outer hall, is a deep fish-pond
surrounded by a stone quay, and crossed by two zigzag
bridges of carved stone. In the grounds, which are filled
with the luxuriant sub-tropical vegetation of the latitude,
long untended, and rendering the winding paths almost
impassable, stood an elegant stone stage for open-air theatri-
cals, backed by a grove of the “lettered” bamboo—an
elegant variety distinguished by black lines imprinted on
the pale-green stem. The main buildings, most substantially
erected originally, were in remarkably good repair; but the
only sign of occupation was in one of the smaller courts,
where a sort of temporary chapel had been fitted up,
decorated with coloured prints of the saints, with Notre
Dame au Sacré Coeur in the centre tearing open her flaming
heart with most unpleasant effect. In the suffering attitudes
of our Christian worthies, as represented to their worshippers,
the asceticism of the Western creed shows forth in strong
contrast to the apparent cheerfulness of Buddhism—as
exhibited in the fat, jovial-looking images in the temples.
Probably both religions have deviated equally from the
doctrines of their founders, the latter being outwardly the
more attractive, the ennobling doctrine of self-denial being

Ar-hats aiid Saints 183

nowadays more strongly emphasized in the former. The
noble examples of the Catholic priesthood are as far beyond
the attainment of the Bonze as is the mental capacity of the
West above that of the East; but if the symbols of each
religion be a true picture of the reward of its observance, I
had rather be a “ Lo-han” than a saint!

Early dawn of the following day saw us once more in the
saddle, prepared again to confront the ups and downs of
this most “broken” country. Our course lay parallel to the
Small river, across a country more broken and by paths
steeper still than yesterday’s. The repeated ascents and
descents were due to the necessity of crossing the numerous
gullies worn in the soft rock by the streams that fall into
the main river. These were usually crossed by smooth, un-
protected bridges in a good state of preservation; but the
stone paths running along a raised dyke between two paddy-
fields, or climbing the side of a rocky cliff, were often barely
twelve inches wide, and the small flagstones of which they
were composed were several degrees out of the horizontal.
In places the flags were missing entirely, leaving small
chasms, over which our little ponies leapt with cat-like
alacrity, making me tremble at times for the landing on
the other side. The sun was pouring down with all the
force of early summer in these latitudes, and scarcely a
breath of air was stirring. During the whole of my stay in
Szechuan, from the middle of March to the beginning of
May, not a drop of rain fell in the daytime, but regular
night showers freshened the air and gladdened the vegeta-
tion. We nooned at a small wayside temple, which possessed
a spring of deliciously cool water, with which we washed
down the small, wheaten, dumpling-like cakes of the country.
The temple, approached by a steep flight of steps, was built
against the face of the rock, and commanded a most

184 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

picturesque view. The peculiar formation of Eastern
Szechuan renders the country charmingly picturesque, each
half-mile yielding a fresh prospect. There are few woods,
properly speaking, but small groves surround the scattered
farms and temples, and the shade of the magnificent banian
is, along the high-roads, seldom wanting for any distance.
Under one of these we had already indulged in some
excellent cherries, little piles of which were spread out on
a table by the wayside, and purchasable for three cash each.
We found the priest gone to market, and his place supplied
by a ragged, little, bare-footed “larn-pigeon,” or acolyte. A
poor woman, accompanied by her little son, both dressed in
their newest clothes, came in while we were resting. Taking
no notice whatever of the strangers, they proceeded leisurely
to disentangle some bundles of red-wax dips which they had
brought with them, and to set them up and light them
before the different josses with which the hall was surrounded.
Then the old lady drew forth one of the circular mat-cushions,
knelt down and kotowed to the central Buddha. At each
blow of her forehead on the stone floor, the ragged little
boy, who had taken up a lounging position near the deep-
toned bell to be found in every temple, struck a smart blow
thereon, presumably to call the attention of the saint to
whom the temple was dedicated to the worshipper’s devotions.
’ The kotowing over, the old lady let her son shake a “lot”
out of the bamboo vase which stands on the altar in front of
the golden image, picked up the slip of bamboo that had
fallen out on the floor, and handed it to the acolyte. A big
quarto volume in manuscript was then produced, and the
page corresponding to the number of the lot referred to.
The ragged little priest being himself une qual to the task of
deciphering the oracle, my companion read it out to him in
all solemnity. It appeared that the old lady’s husband was

Chinese Footbinding 185

sick unto death, and that she had come to pray for his re-
covery, and was now receiving an answer to her prayers.
The reply was somewhat ambiguous, but generally favourable,
and the old lady hobbled down the steep flight of steps,
holding her staff in one hand, and leaning on her boy with
the other, doubtless highly comforted. Long as I have
lived in China, I can never become reconciled to this
hideous and painful mutilation of the feet, and I can but
wish that some despot like the conquerors of old would
ascend the throne and issue an ukase against a practice
which entails gratuitous torture on one-half of the population.
It would be obeyed, for thinking Chinamen regret the
cruelty to which the despot fashion alone compels them to
conform. On the accession of the Mongols, the private
graves and public cemeteries, which then, as now, absorbed
an enormous proportion of the arable land, were all ploughed
over by imperial edict, and, as is well known, upon the
accession of the present dynasty in 1644, the dress of the
Manchus, together with the obnoxious pigtail, was accepted
by the whole nation almost without a murmur. This shows
what determination among an apathetic people like the
Chinese will effect.

Setting out again on our journey, the range of hills, in
which were situated the coal-mines which formed our
destination, came into view. The range itself is about a
thousand feet above the level of the surrounding country,
about two thousand above the level of the river, and three
thousand by my aneroid above the sea: it runs for some
distance in a N.N.E. and S.S.W. direction, and is cut
through at right angles by the Siao river, which has thus
manufactured a picturesque gorge on a small scale, similar
to the magnificent cuttings on the main river below. We
traversed one or two flourishing villages, small ports situated

186 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

at the mouth of gullies opening on the river. ‘The country
was entirely under cultivation, with rice in the bottoms and
opium and tobacco on the slopes. Ascending the range,
however, at the foot of which we arrived at sunset, we left
cultivation behind and rode up through scrubby pine-forests
along a steep mountain path, winding round the crest of a
ravine, at the bottom of which ran a roaring stream which
issued from the coal-mine above us. At length a huge talus,
or spoil-heap formed by the mine’s working, barred our way ;
but the ponies scrambled up and landed us on a small
plateau just as the stars were appearing over the almost
vertical hill in our front. There was just enough light to en-
able us to distinguish some fifty naked coal-begrimed coolies
lounging about, and some two-storied wooden shanties built
up against the declivity of the hillside and over the hori-
zontal entrance of the mine. Ascending to the upper story,
and passing a crowd of curious but absolutely undemonstrative
coolies, who had just come off their shift and were lounging
after their bath, we entered a small room in the rear,
occupied by the foreman of the works, in which—with the
aid of the good man’s bed there was barely room to seat
our party—we sat down to a frugal supper of red rice and
broad beans, washed down with a tea so nauseous that I
was positively unable to swallow it. My hosts informed
me that the leaf was grown on the neighbouring hill, and
that its cost dried was only about three-halfpence a pound ;
the fragrant herb in this instance consisted mainly of stalks
and twigs intermingled with a few big leaves, the whole
more or less musty. Any infusion of the kind is called
“Cha” by the Chinese, and does not necessarily contain
any real tea. It is with such refuse that the unfortunate
Tibetans are supplied in the shape of brick tea. Could
India force the opening-up of Tibet to trade, Assam

Szechuan Coal-mine 187

sweepings would replace this rubbish to the advantage of all
concerned. All eat and drink alike at the mine, and as the
miners are fed by the proprietors, economy in food is studied
more than quality. Still, as I had been looking forward to
the usual refreshing cup of tea after our long day in the sun,
I was much disappointed. Being pretty well tired out, I
deferred my visit to the mine until the morning: meanwhile
I noted down the chief statistics as detailed to me by the
obliging superintendent of works :—

Coal raised per day ... we 30 tons.

Coal raised per day before workings stopped by water we 60 tons.
Total number of men employed __.... ae ise .. 120
viz.—Hewers, at work in four galleries .. ave sid 36
Carriers, between the galleries and the mouth ... 36
Pumpers, working the bamboo pumps... sa 36
Fanners, working the revolving fans es iu 12

besides superintendent, foreman, two accountants and landlord’s agent
appointed to tally the output and collect his royalty of 175 copper cash
for each *‘ to-tze,” or basket of 260 catties, being the equivalent of 5d.
per ton of 2240 pounds; my friends, the Tungs, being the present
owners of the mine.

The men work in two shifts of twelve hours per day of
twenty-four ; their rice, which is provided by the lessee of
the mine, being carried to them three times a day. Their
pay is 140 cash per day, equal to sixpence-halfpenny, in
addition to their food, worth about half this amount. The
wages are paid every ten days, pay-day being a holiday:
they thus receive ten days’ pay for nine days’ labour. On
the other hand, each pair of workers, viz.a hewer and a
carrier, are bound to deliver daily eleven “ to-tze” at the
pit’s mouth. Thus the delivery of each ton of coals costs
in actual labour about one shilling.

The ventilating fans are circular and enclosed in boxes,
and are precisely similar to those used for winnowing tea.

188 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

The fresh air is driven in through bamboo tubing. Three
fans were at work: one at the entrance of the mine, just
outside the swinging doors; one at the extremity of the
tunnel, 1000 feet outside; and one closely adjoining the
workings. These fans are not needed in winter and are
worked in summer only, commencing on the third day of
the third moon to the ninth day of the ninth moon—say
from April to September inclusive.

Another incidental expense is of course that for illumina-
tion ; this is effected by Tung-oil lamps, one of which each
carrier wears on his head and burns ten ounces per shift,
the hewers burning six ounces only. According to my
informant, this Tung-you is oil derived from the nut of the
Eleococca sinensis, from the smoke of which the soot used
to manufacture the so-called Indian ink is obtained; they
told me, that were rape or other oil used the men would
cough,

The royalty received by the Tung family for their mine
in 1882 amounted to 781 taels, about £200.

The history of the mine is a curious one. It was opened
about twenty years ago by a capitalist whose means were
exhausted by the time the main tunnel, which runs through
tooo feet of sandstone rock and occupied six years in
boring, was completed ; he thereupon mortgaged the mine,
but, being still in want of funds, sold the mine to the Tungs
for 4000 taels, about half its cost, and little more than
enough to redeem the mortgage. The mortgagee, who had
been expecting to get the mine into his own hands, refused
to give it up, and forcibly prevented Mr. Tung from taking
possession by stationing armed men round the works. This
Mr. Tung naturally resented, and he immediately set about
collecting a force wherewith to enter upon his property.
Some days later the force was gathered at a farmhouse in

fight for a Coal-mine 189

the neighbourhood, and a night-attack determined upon.
This attack was led in person by my companion on the
present occasion—Tung chiu-ye, or the honourable ninth
Tung, he being the ninth brother (all first cousins being
included) of his generation. At early dawn the party of
some twenty men, armed with spears and a few matchlocks,
set forth, hoping to catch the enemy unprepared, and so
gain peaceable possession of the place; though it was still
dark, however, they were discovered, and met with a volley
which fortunately injured no one. The Tung men now
made a rush, whereupon the enemy fled into the surrounding
jungle, not, however, unfortunately for Tung, before one of
their number had bitten the dust, transfixed by a spear.
Possession was thus gained and the law’s delay avoided ;
the late mortgagee, however, was not a man to neglect the
advantage he had gained in losing one of his men, while
the Tung force had escaped scot free. A charge of murder
was preferred before the prefect, and it cost Mr. Tung
another 4000 taels, a very large sum in these parts, before
he got clear of the authorities. He now holds the mine
undisturbed, and receives from it the moderate income
detailed above.

There appears to be no taxation of mining property, the
officials contenting themselves with whatever transit dues they
can collect while the produce is being transported. This
mine is eight li, or little more than two miles, distant from
the banks of the river, where there is a depot for its sale, and
whence the buyers transport it by water to Chung-king.
Porterage over the mountain to Shih chia-liang (the depét)
costs twenty-seven cash per picul, while the thirty miles of
water-carriage to Chung-king cost fourteen cash only. The
coal is sold (delivered at Shih chia-liang) for 130 cash for
lump, and r1o cash for dust, per picul of 133 pounds, or

190 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

about six shillings per ton, It is a soft bituminous coal of
apparently good quality. ‘

On Friday, April 2oth, I was up at 4 am., and,
donning a native suit of calico and a pair of straw sandals
much too small for me, I entered the mine. A tunnel eight
feet high by five feet broad, almost horizontal, but with a
gentle incline outwards, pierces the rock for a distance of
194 pai, Chinese fathom or length of five Chinese feet of
fourteen inches English—thus making the length of the
adit about one thousand English feet. In the centre a
wooden tramway is laid, upon which run the to-tze or coal-
baskets, which rest on four small iron wheels. A double
doorway guards the entrance, which is only opened for the
passage of the to-tze as they come out laden with coal, each
propelled by its men. We entered, pushing an empty to-tze
before us as a guide to keep us in the centre of the passage
and out of the water-channels excavated on either side.
The object of so carefully closing the entrance was, they told
me, to retain the fresh air that was being so laboriously
pumped in. We progressed slowly through the slush,
having to give way for each laden to-tze bound out, by
removing our empty carriage bodily off the rails so as to let
the other one keep its course. At length we reached the
head of the tunnel, at a spot where transverse galleries
branch off right and left, while facing us sat in pitch dark-
ness a solitary fanner, turning the wheel, whereby the air of
the tunnel was pumped into the gallery to the left, which
again was closed by double doors similar to those which
guard the main entrance. To the right were abandoned
galleries, now impassable owing to the caving in of the roofs.
Passing through the doors on our left, we scrambled along
the low passage, necessitating constant stooping, for nearly
500 yards, when we came upon the present workings. We

Opening a New Mine I9t

here turned off to the right along the seam, which appeared
to be about three feet thick, and inclined to the horizon at
an angle of not more than twenty-five degrees. The miners
were hewing sideways with a single-headed pick; a short
distance down water had been reached, and was being pain-
fully kept down at its present level with bamboo pumps.
The air seemed quite fresh, but the cramped position induced
me to beat a speedy retreat to the outer air. Here, having
enjoyed the warm bath which all the miners take on coming
off their shift, and having dressed in the presence of an
admiring crowd, we sat down to an enjoyable breakfast.
At the meal, washed down with warm, cheap, and not
unpalatable wine, the owner and lessee anxiously discussed
the possibility of introducing steam pumping machinery.
At nine o’clock we again mounted our sturdy little nags and
commenced the steep descent. It was a most lovely
morning, and as the path followed down a small ravine,
entirely shaded by the overhanging foliage, with the roar of
the tiny waterfalls at our feet, the ride was most exhilarating.
Breaks in the foliage exhibited glimpses of the smiling
valleys we had traversed on the previous day, framed ina
ring of blue mountains in the distance. About halfway
down we came upon a little mat shed, erected ina small
clearing, in which was ensconced the accountant and the
clerk of the works of the new mine which was being opened.
A pressing invitation to rest and take tea was followed by
an offer to conduct us to the works. These had been in
progress now some six months, and had resulted in a tunnel
similar to that leading to Tung’s mine, having been driven
about forty feet into the mountain. Two men were at work
quarrying the hard sandstone, their progress being at the rate
of about seven inches a day: they expected to reach the
coal-seams in about seven years, The handsome scale

192 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

upon which these works are laid down forms a striking con-
trast to the miserable burrows of the mines in the Hu-peh
province which I had visited on my voyage up the Yang-tse,
and, like everything else in Szechuan, gives one a favourable
impression of the exceptional well-being of this province.
The great and, apparently for Chinese, unnecessary height
of eight feet, is given to the tunnels solely for the sake of
ventilation.

According to Richthofen, the coal-measures underlying the
sandstone which forms the surface of the Szechuan plateau
are among the most extensive in the world. They are
worked wherever the strata have been tilted up by the
elevation of the numerous ranges that cross the plateau in a
north-easterly and south-westerly direction, and so made
accessible. In these, simple horizontal adits enable the coal
to be attacked with comparative ease. The frequent rivers
have cut through these ranges, forming gorges and exposing
perfect sections of the different strata, amidst which the
coal is embedded.

We now continued our route to Shih chia-liang, . where
we had arranged to take the boat for Chung-king. The
road was a ten-inch-wide flagged path built for the accom-
modation of the coal-porters, strings of whom we met return-
ing to the mine with empty baskets, and who, warned by
the jingling bells on our ponies’ collars, stood promptly
aside to let us pass. Suddenly my companion ordered me
to turn up a steep path on the left, which led to the farm-
stead of Lin chia kou, the Lin family gap, a level terrace
formed in a ravine, up to which we ascended by a hand-
some flight of steps. This turned out to be the farm at
which Tung’s attacking party had assembled a few years
before, and it was to protect our present host from the
consequences of his unlucky manslaughter at the fight above

The Opium Question 193

described that the Tungs had to expend 4000 taels. Our
host was a fine specimen of a Western Chinaman of the
farming class—a tall, well-built man, of quiet dignified
bearing, as great a contrast in appearance to the trading
Chinaman as is the typical British farmer to the London
cit. The farm buildings, substantially built and of two
stories, occupied three sides of a triangle, the open court-
yard overlooking a splendidly fertile valley reaching down
to the river and watered by a noisy brook, utilized, as usual,
to irrigate the paddy-fields which occupied the more open
ground. Above rose bamboo groves and pine forests to
the mountain’s top. The poppy, which here forms the
winter crop of the bean and maize lands, was just ripe for
gathering, and a close examination of the capsules showed
them to be scored with the four-bladed knife, from the
wounds made by which the opium was now slowly exuding,
so much so that, walking through the fields, my white
clothes were all stained with the brown juice. I had many
discussions on the subject of opium cultivation, the enormous
extent of which in the western provinces strikes every
traveller with amazement. It is distressing to find the
English name everywhere associated with the forcible intro-
duction of this beneficent and at the same time pernicious
drug. Of course it is useless to tell Chinamen that opium
* must have been used in China long before the old East
India Company introduced it. The Portuguese were the
first to bring opium from India to sell in China, and it is
certain‘ that they would not have brought it, had they not
found a ready sale for it. The opium-pipe is most surely
a Chinese invention, for it is absolutely unknown in any
other land. As for its pernicious effects, I look upon the
money and time wasted upon it as far worse than its direct
effects on health, In China, where the wages of a working
fe)

194 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

man barely suffice to keep body and soul together, the
money spent on opium is withdrawn from his daily food;
hence the half-starved appearance of opium-smokers among
the poor, and the cruel destitution their families often suffer
—much as with the gin-drinking poor at home; but how
many opium-smokers, in easy circumstances, does one meet
with seriously injured by the drug? I have met but a very
few such myself, during a forty years’ stay in the country and
extensive intercourse with natives of every class, To the
well-nourished Chinaman, his evening pipes are more a
pastime, a means of passing the time pleasantly in a state of
placid inactivity dear to the Oriental; while the merchant
conducts many of his best bargains over the pipe, much as
negotiations are often conducted over a bottle of wine at
home. To this class the waste of time over the pipe
is not such a serious objection as it undoubtedly is to the
official body. The work of a conscientious mandarin in
China is most arduous, and it is almost impossible for the
best-intentioned and most energetic official to overtake the
arrears of work, especially in the troublous times of war,
rebellion, and famine, with which for the past fifty years the
empire has been unceasingly afflicted.

With undefined duties ; with executive and judicial, and
at times even military functions strangely intermingled, a
Chinese mandarin is dependent on his subordinates at the
best of times; but when he succumbs to the opium-pipe,
and spends more than half his time on the opium-couch,
rapacity and misgovernment go on unchecked. The fault is
in the system, which allows a man notoriously incapable to
remain at his post. Such men are said to possess the “ Yin”
or passionate craving for the drug, a vice analogous to dipso-
mania with ourselves. In the absence of the “Yin,” all
Chinamen will tell you that opium-smoking is a harmless

Opium and Tobacco 195

though foolish pastime. As to eradicating the vice by edict,
it would amount to a social revolution, such as in the history
of the world has never yet been carried out. Even attempts
to stay its cultivation, which have been tried by well-
meaning but impracticable philanthropists, who are to
be found in China as in the West, have all proved futile.
As my former host at Lin chai kou informed me, himself a
non-smoker, if it were forbidden to collect the drug, his
winter crop of poppy would still pay him for its other pro-
ducts, such as the oil produced from the seed, the lye used
in dying, produced from the ash of the stalk, and the heavy
crop of leaves which goes to feed the pigs which every
Chinaman keeps. Nor, with the Chinese system of apply-
ing all the town manure to the fields, does the crop exhaust
the ground or render the summer crop of maize any less
prolific. Opium seldom appears planted on the level paddy-
fields, but commonly on declivities too steep to grow much
else with profit. Still it would be best abandoned altogether.

Tobacco is another very important product, the quality
of the Szechuan tobacco being far superior to that of any
other of the eighteen provinces, It is curious to a foreigner
accustomed only to the smoking of the coast provinces,
where a Lilliputian bowl is filled for each inhalation, and the
burning ash is perpetually being knocked out on the floor—
not a little to the annoyance of the neat-minded Western—
to see a totally different method here adopted. The leaf is
carried in a pouch (filling and wrapper separate), and a
short cigar made up on each occasion, which is leisurely
smoked in a pipe. The tobacco is of excellent flavour, and
costs about fourpence a pound.

Our host had expected us to stay a night with him, and
was not a little put out upon my representing that I must
positively be in Chung-king that day. The fact was, day

196 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

after day was slipping away, and I feared I might not reach
Hankow in time for the tea-season if I failed to impress my
native friends with my impatience to leave. So, notwith-
standing the blood-stains in the courtyard of the unfortunate
porker that had been slaughtered the night before in our
honour, and to which our host appealed most pitifully,
I regretfully took leave, having partaken only of sweetmeats,
cake, and wine.

Threading our way down the narrow, winding path, which
led among the banks of one of the countless ravines by
which the land is split up, its soft sandstone sides decorated
with a luxuriant growth of ferns and creepers, we safely
reached the small village, combining fort and ferry-station,
of Shih chia-liang. The little village has one narrow,
paved street, and its houses are built on a sloping ledge,
the only piece of level ground at the mouth of the gully
being occupied by the coal depot. Here some 200 tons
were stored under lock and key, awaiting sale and shipment
down-stream to Chung-king. The water being now low, a
steep descent of about a hundred feet leads down to the river-
bank, where a few coal-barges were being loaded, with streams
of porters coming in coal-laden, and others carrying the coal
down to the river, the weight of each load being carefully
checked in both instances by the omnipresent steelyard.
The place had the busy and well-to-do aspect which seems
to characterize Szechuan villages. Meanwhile a boat had
been chartered to convey us down-stream to Chung-king,
our ponies returning with their mafus by a short cut on the
opposite bank. It was a pretty sight to see the clever way
in which these little ponies ascended the narrow landing
plank and jumped down into the hold of the ferry-boat,
not the least alarmed by the roaring of the rapid at the
foot of which Shih chia-liang is situated, These Kwei-chow

Warm Spring Gorge 197

ponies are renowned throughout all Western China ; they
are probably, for their size, the most powerful animals in the
world. -

All Szechuan rivers are torrents in the rainy season, and
journeys by them seem to be measured more by the amount
of water traversed in ascending them than by the actual
amount of ground gone over ; thus I was informed that the
journey before us was only ninety li, say twenty-five miles,
while the upward voyage is reckoned at 120 li. The li is no
definite measure, and varies perpetually from place to place ;
250 toa degree of latitude is a convenient standard generally
adopted by foreign travellers, which gives 3°62 li to the
statute mile—a fairly correct average in Szechuan (in
Yiinnan the li is longer).

The name of this, the only affluent from the north of any
size met with from the Han upwards—a distance of 800
miles—is, according to the maps, the “ Chia-ling ho ;” but
here it is called the “ Lin chiang ho,” or river of Lin-chiang,
a place situated some distance higher up. From the spot
where we now embarked, we could look up to the gorge, by
which the stream forces its way through the range, the lower
slopes of which we had just descended. The gorge is steep
and narrow, with a rapid at its base precisely like the Yang-
tse gorges in miniature, and would well repay a visit. The
gorge is called the “ Kwan-yin hsia” (Kwan-yin is the
Goddess of Mercy, and holds in the Buddhist worship a
position analogous to that of the Virgin Mary in Europe),
and its upper continuation, the “ Wén t‘ang hsia” (“Warm
Spring Gorge”). In it is a temple with mineral baths,
efficacious in skin diseases—with which more than half the
population seem afflicted. ‘This gorge opens up the coal-
seam in which are the coal-workings I had just visited.
Here the coal is lowered down directly into barges at the

198 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

foot of the cliff, by baskets running on bamboo lines leading
from the pit’s mouth.

We glided swiftly down the stream, our boatmen doing
little more than keep the boat in the centre of the current,
clear of the eddies and rocks at the side. We were in com-
pany with a small fleet of antediluvian-looking vessels laden
to the water’s edge with drugs from the borders of Kansu
—thubarb and liquorice-root. These boats are built of
rough planks, pegged together with tacks of bamboo; they
are only constructed for the downward voyage; arrived in
Chung-king, they are broken up, and their planking sold for
house-building. It is curiously Chinese to entrust such
valuable produce to such frail craft.

The beauty of the scenery is indescribable. The ravine
through which the river flows offers a fresh picture at every
turn, The winter crops are all ripe for harvest, and every
slope is cultivated to the summit ; the red, perpendicular cliffs
which rise up in every direction are alone left bare, and form
a rich contrast to the surrounding vegetation. In these cliffs
are the square openings of the caves that formed the homes
of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, looking like the
port-holes of a rock fortress. The present inhabitants take
but little interest in, and know still less about, these curious
vestiges of the past. They can only tell you that they belonged
to the Man-tze, or “savages.” More recently they have
served as the home of the “ Man yin,” or “savages of dark-
ness,” being the locality to which, until latterly, the loose
women of Chung-king were strictly relegated by the
authorities. The scaffolding, by which these caves were
formerly rendered accessible, has disappeared, and to explore
them now a supply of ropes and ladders would be needful,
which, unfortunately, I had no time to provide. Mr. Baber
has sent an elaborate account of them to the Geographical

Rebellion of Chang-hsten-chung 199

Society, but he is able to come to no conclusion as to
who constructed them. Like all the Szechuan rivers, the
Siao ho forms a succession of pools and rapids, its bed being
curiously obstructed in places by reefs of rock which the
water has not yet succeeded in disintegrating. Thus, a few
miles above Chung-king is the stone gate (Shih men), a ledge
of hard sandstone rising some twenty feet above the present
winter level, and through which the river flows in a rapid
current by four narrow, winding channels, These, as long
as the rocks are visible above the water, are easily navigable ;
but in summer, when the river is in flood and the rocks are
hidden, the passage is perilous in the extreme. Every spot
has its legend, and if I were to relate all that I learnt on my
voyage up and down, I fear this account would never be
brought to aconclusion. All who have a slight acquaintance
with the history of China are aware that, during the troublous
times that preceded the fall of the Ming dynasty, in the early
part of the seventeenth century, the province of Szechuan
was almost depopulated by the ferocious rebel—‘‘ Chang-
hsien-chung,” Chang the Loyal (!). The province was re-
peopled by immigrants from Hukwang and Kiangsi, to whom
land was allotted on exceptionally favourable terms—terms
which have been faithfully observed to this day, the land-tax
being nominal in amount, and considerably less than that
imposed on any other of the eighteen provinces, while its soil
is among the most fertile in the empire. During the
rebellion of Chang the Loyal, a popular official of Chung-
king, named Tung, drowned himself in the Siao ho, and his
body was changed into a rock, which still obstructs the navi-
gation a short distance above the stone gate. Near by is
the “Shih ma ho” (“Stone Horse Temple ”), opposite which
stands a stone horse wanting in feet. He represents an un-
fortunate animal that was in the habit of straying at night

200 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

and eating the crops (in China there are no fences). The cruel
country people amputated his feet, and, as they thought,
put an end to his wanderings; but Buddha, defender of
every breathing thing, turned him into stone on the spot, and
on dark nights the horse resumes his fleshly form and still
continues his depredations. Higher up we traversed another
group of rocklets, which the river has not yet succeeded in
eroding entirely, known as the “ Chiu shih kang,” or “ ninety
jars,” each one of which is filled with silver, secreted there
by the inhabitants before their massacre, which would repay
a public-spirited surveyor who would clear them from the
channel. Beguiled by many such yarns, we sped rapidly on,
and reached Chung-king at sunset. During these interesting
colloquies, my Chinese companions had reclined gracefully
in the boat upon a red blanket of foreign manufacture, the
advantages of which over the ordinary native wadded quilt
they extolled highly. Unlike on the latter, the fleas could not
leap on its woolly surface, and were hence easily caught and
destroyed, as ocular demonstration showed.

Our boat took ground under the overhanging battlements
of the north gate, to which we ascended by a steep climb of
nearly three hundred filthy steps, and, almost groping our way
through the dimly-lighted streets, at length reached home in
time for a welcome supper. I was anxious to know how
our ponies would fare in the dark over the rocky roads, but
was told to have no care, for they were accustomed to travel
by night; and “had they not, like all horses, ‘night eyes’ in
their fetlocks?”

The river, which during my fortnight’s stay had gradually
risen ten feet, and covered the greater portion of the shingle
beds opposite the city, next day suddenly fell six feet, and
gave another respite to the extensive “ bamboo” town which
grows up under the walls and along the water’s edge in the

Native Guilds 201

winter season. On this day I visited the Shansi Guildhall
—a handsome, spacious, highly decorated building, situated
just within the wall, and facing the picturesque hills on the
opposite bank. The view from the terrace between the hall
and the city wall, and on a level with the embrasures in the
latter, is thus magnificent; but nothing of it is seen from the
interior of the building, which is, as usual, entirely enclosed
in four lofty walls. A dinner and theatrical performance
was in progress, and lively groups of eight surrounded the
tables with which the courtyards were filled. I kept myself
out of sight behind the colossal, gilded josses that occupy
the dais at the upper end, not wishing to join in the feast
nor to cause the commotion which my unexpected appear-
ance would have created. There is much in the present
aspect and uses of these guilds in China, as, indeed, in many
other things, to remind one of the condition of our own
country in the Middle Ages.

The same contrast between the glory and magnificence of
the public institutions and the comparative squalor of the
homes; the exclusion of the fair sex from their festal
meetings ; * the richness of the costumes and the dirt hidden
beneath them ; the universal interest with which all public
festivities, religious as well as secular, are regarded; the
rigid thrift observed in private combined with a magnificent
lavishness in public; the settlement of all trade disputes by
the guild, and the shunning of all laws and lawyers; the
rules laid down by the guilds obeyed unquestioned, and the
unwritten etiquette of business no less strictly observed ;
the liberal subscriptions and legacies given to the guilds,
and the way in which these institutions are the first to be
called upon for funds in times of calamity and distress—
mark the resemblance between East and West in different

* In London this is a modern development.

202 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

ages. Szechuan is specially worthy of study in this respect,
its customs being unalloyed with outside ideas. It has, too,
of late years been more free from political disturbances than
any other province, although its history is not free from the
periodical convulsions that in times gone by have afflicted
the West no less than the East. The trade control of the
Chinese guilds is still a living power, and, as far as I have
seen, one invariably exercised for the good of its members
and the honour of the craft. I could even wish at times
that our city companies still exercised some supervision
over the trades which in name they represent. Here, the
grievance of the individual becomes the concern of the
guild, and he is thus protected alike from unjust exactions
by officials and the often no less tyrannical procedure of
powerful monopolies. The wealthy foreign firms established
along the coasts have to reckon with them, and hence the
somewhat jealous eye with which they are regarded; but
their action on the whole is undoubtedly beneficial as much
in upholding fair dealing amongst their ‘members as in
protecting them from outside injustice. More than one
instance of their power has been shown at the river-ports
within the last twelve months. A large steamer of two
thousand tons, belonging to the China Navigation Company,
was wrecked in the Yang-tse, and became a total loss, The
shippers, entirely Chinese, claimed from the company the
value of their shipments, and the fear of “ taboo” compelled
the company to make them good. It should not be forgotten,
in connection with this now established custom in China,
that in the same way, where our own Government charters
vessels or ships stores by them, it, by the simple device of
striking a pen through the arbitrary excepting clauses of the
bill of lading, holds the owners responsible “ for neglect of
master or crew,” and, in the event of loss or damage, the

‘coz ‘¢ aon of | ‘Sury-Sunyo ‘[eypyNy sSuvayny ut yan0D

The Cabs of Chung-king 203

owner has to pay, as in the case of the steamer wrecked off
the Cape during the last Zulu War. With us, it is true, the
insurance is supposed to protect the ship from losses such
as these; but there are many risks which no insurance
covers, and against these an individual is helpless, in the
face of the excepting clauses which exonerate the shipmaster
from any care of his goods, and to which he is bound to
subscribe ; butwhat only a Government can do at home is
in China effected by a guild. The other instance was the
determination of the Hankow Tea-guild, in the spring of
1883, to put a stop to the unfair system of weighing which
had long prevailed at that port. A notice to all the foreign
buyers was simply sent round by the chairman of the guild,
to the effect that henceforth exact weights would be insisted
upon, and a long prevailing injustice was forthwith
abolished.

One fine day I hired one of the cabs of Chung-king, a
sedan-chair, stands of which are to be found at almost every
street corner, and set out for the west gate, to reach which
it was necessary for me to traverse nearly the whole breadth
of the city, about two miles, but seemingly much more,
owing to the constant ascents, many of the staircases being
cut out of the solid rock. The city is, in fact, divided into
the upper and lower city, the ‘Shang pan cheng,” and the
“Hsia pan cheng,” the former being built on a sandstone
bluff which rises about a hundred feet above the latter, and
is generally too steep to admit of any houses being built on
its precipitous sides. The business hongs and the principal
yamens are in the lower city ; the missionary establishments,
the pleasure gardens, and the foreign consulates in the
upper; and from this upper city a succession of distant and
beautiful views is obtainable. The chair fare for any
distance within the walls is twenty-five cash, equal to one

204 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

penny of our money, and, wonderful to relate, the coolies
demand no more from a Chinese-speaking, and hence civi-
lized, barbarian than from a native. I thus usually took a
chair through the city, in order to avoid the crowd, as far as
the gate, being able to walk through the country in perfect
freedom. Leaving the west gate, the road falls to a narrow
ravine, rising again beyond over the grave-covered hills,
which, crescent-like, extend across between the two rivers,
and wall in the city in its rear. In the ravines are situated
the crematoria, in which the waste paper of the city is
solemnly committed to the flames. These crematoria are
elaborate places, comprising a walled enclosure, in which is
a garden and a cottage for the superintendent of the cere-
monies, besides the square pagoda-shaped tower some fifty
feet high, in which the paper is offered up. The Chinese
character is esteemed too sacred for any paper on which it
has been inscribed to be allowed to descend to base uses:
hence the formation of benevolent societies, who maintain a
corps of colporteurs whose business it is to make periodical
house-to-house visitations, and collect every scrap of writing-
paper which has been thrown aside. These colporteurs-are
further armed with a pair of bamboo tongs, with which to
seize any fragments that have been unwittingly neglected
amidst the garbage of the streets. Thus we see, what is
also noticeable in other lands, more given to superstition
than to science, a great amount of labour devoted to a
superstitious object which would be better spent on
scavenging.

My goal on the present occasion was a country house
situated on the banks of Siao ho, about two miles out of
town. The place is celebrated for its flower-garden, and is
a resort for dinner-parties. The path winds through the
hills in a gradual descent, until a walled enclosure, situated

A Suburban Residence 205

a quarter of a mile back from the river-bank, is reached.
I was accompanied only by a coolie as guide. We knocked
at the door, which was opened by a woman, and entered a
courtyard filled with orange-trees in pots. A range of
buildings looking on to courtyards filled with flowering
shrubs in pots occupied the enclosure, and were thus
capable of affording accommodation to separate parties. I
sat down in one of the pavilions, where tea was served by
some young girls, daughters of the proprietress, who, with
their mother, their cousins, and their aunts, crowded round
and overwhelmed me with questions. There was a pleasing
absence of that painful shyness which precludes all inter-
course with respectable women on the part of a foreigner
in other parts of China, with, at the same time, no lack of
true modesty. It appeared that the proprietress was a
widow, her husband having died a short time previously,
leaving her with a large family of daughters, and little
beyond this property to depend upon. Her endeavour to
earn a living by letting out the place to picnic parties from
the city had not been over-successful. Times were bad in
Szechuan, as elsewhere, and the wealthy trading classes were
economizing—the same lament that I heard from the
Taoists at Lao-chun grotto. But, unlike these, the old lady,
far from being clamorous for money, resolutely declined
payment for her tea. She wanted to sell the property, how-
ever, and tried to persuade me to give a thousand tiao
(4200) for it. How different is this “ Zuvorkommenheit ”
to the sulky reception a foreigner meets with upon
attempting to negotiate for anything of the kind in the
neighbourhood of the open ports! Having enjoyed the
tea and the rest after the hot walk, I descended to the
bank of the river, which here forms a “‘t’o,” or pool, where
the current is slack and the water wide and deep—a

206 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

seductive spot for a bath, which I was prompt to utilize. A
small but silent crowd collected on the bank, and I was un-
disturbed by any rude remark, and, after dressing, sat down
on the bank to admire the scenery. An old gentleman
offered me his pipe, and descanted on the dangers of the
river, now flowing so tranquilly at our feet, when swollen by
the autumn floods. A walk back to the city along the river-
bank, now on a well-turfed sandbank, now scrambling with
the aid of rock-cut steps over a jutting promontory, ended a
pleasant outing, and produced an appetite for the some-
what insipid dishes of an ordinary native dinner.

Mine host appeared early on the morning of April 25th
with his little daughter, whom he had brought down to the
hong from his home in the upper town to see a Taoist show,
which was to pass our door, in the street of the White
Elephant. She was a little chétive thing of ten years, but
from her size looking much younger, and so pale that I asked
her father whether there was anything the matter with her.
He said, “No; but that she was suffering from her feet,” as
all growing girls upon whom this frightful practice is
imposed necessarily must do. Hers were bandaged up
until they looked more like those of a doll than the feet of
a human being, and the poor child never attempted to walk
without holding on to some one’s hand, and was always
carried up and down the flights of steps which led from one
courtyard to the other. My host, like other Chinamen with
whom I have conversed on the subject, agreed that it was a
pity for the children that such a custom existed; but that
when they were grown up, should their feet have been left
alone, no one would regret the fact more bitterly than the
girls themselves, In short, it is the fashion; and any family
setting their faces against it would be socially ostracized,
and would be debarred from all decent matches for its

‘goz “J aavfoz | ‘Sury-Bunyy apismo ‘A[wuey uang ayy Jo ywas-AIQUNOD url uapsey

The Small-foot Question 207

daughters, With the exception of the boatwomen in the
south (the ‘“Han-shui mei,” or salt-water girls), and the
aboriginal tribes in the west, as also perhaps a few beggars
and outcasts, all the women of China, poor as well as rich,
are crippled in this barbarous fashion. Ancient custom
appears to have reconciled the people to the habit, and to
have hardened the hearts of parents to the sufferings entailed
on their children by it. So few Englishmen ever have an
opportunity of mixing intimately with the natives and seeing
anything of their family life—and then only on rare occasions
—that the terrible evils attending this abominable practice
seldom come home to one, and by those living at the open
ports it is hardly noticed, the women destined to associate
with foreigners being specially brought up in a natural
manner. Undistorted feet are odious in the eyes of the
Chinese, and are associated with all that is vile. Is it not
possible that this enfeeblement of the mothers through
countless generations has had its effect in stunting the mental
growth of the Chinese as a nation? The Chinese are great
Nature-worshippers, and their dread of acting in discord
with Nature is shown in their superstitious regard for “ Feng-
shui.” In a country where the monsoons blow with the
regularity that they exhibit in China, the doctrine of the
evil influences attending the north wind, and the absolute
necessity of a southern exposure, are founded on a true
observance of nature, and are worthy of close imitation by
the foreigners whose lot is cast here. In a country, too,
whose staff of life is dependent on irrigated fields, inter-
ference with the watercourses is rightly guarded by a
religious dread of interference with the earth-dragon. But
man has a double environment, with both sides of which, in
order to be happy, he must try to live in accord, though the
two are often incompatible. The Chinese have laboured as

208 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

successfully as most peoples to place themselves in accord
with their zafural surroundings; but, as in the West, though
in a less degree, the forces of their socia/ surroundings have
proved too strong for them. In a case like this, force
majeure is needed to break through the bonds of custom,
and I verily believe that, when our troops were masters of
Pekin, had we had the courage to usurp the dragon throne,
and had issued an edict prohibiting henceforth the mutilation
of the children’s feet, the command would have been obeyed,
sullenly perhaps at first, but afterwards thankfully. Such
a proceeding, though possibly not warrantable on other
grounds, would, in the cause of humanity, have been per-
fectly justifiable, and precedent for such despotic edicts
exists in more than one instance in Chinese history. The
Manchus, as is well known, not only introduced the pigtail,
but enforced the use of narrow sleeves, with the cuffs cut like
horses’ hoofs, on a reluctant people ; and at this day the flow-
ing dress of the Mings is seen nowhere but on the stage
and in the dress of the Buddhist priesthood. Wu san-koei,
the conqueror of Yunan under the first emperor of the
present dynasty, found there was such an unintelligible mass
of outlandish dialects, that he ordered the people, on pain of
death, to learn Pekingese; and to this day travellers in this
remote province are struck with wonder at the purity of the
language spoken there. The Chinese are a law-abiding
people, eminently respectful to constituted authority, and
patient acceptors of accomplished facts. Their rebellions,
really less frequent than they seem when viewed through
the perspective of their long history, seem invariably to
have been the outcome of local oppressions or of unrelieved
famines, and never simply pure uprisings against an alien
dynasty. The club-feet question is one on which it is
impossible for any person who has lived amongst the

Character of the Manchu 209

Chinese not to feel strongly, and thus to be led to grope for
a probably unattainable remedy.* :

In contrast with the slender, listless appearance of young
Chinese girls, was the robust, sturdy look of a Manchu
family whose acquaintance I made at the Kung-kwan or
Ya-mén, in Chung-king, maintained for the reception of
travelling officials. The father was a hale old man, hardly
distinguishable from a well-to-do Chinaman, but his daughters
were the picture of health, and full of vivacity ; the difference
was so striking, that before I noticed their feet, I was struck
with their unusually healthy look and easy manners. It is
curious that, owing probably to this distinction, the Manchus
have, unlike all previous conquerors of the country, never
freely intermarried with the natives; they are still physically
superior, though apparently still intellectually inferior, and
they appear to have lost the conspicuous energy that enabled
a handful of foreigners to overrun the country two centuries
ago. They seem to be gifted with a dogged bravery, but,
even to a greater extent than the Chinese themselves, to be
wanting in initiative. Possibly this is due to the fact that
they are, to all intents and purposes, pensioners of the State.
Their numbers are too few to cause much jealousy in the
native Chinese, who see them thus specially favoured. They
form the nominal garrisons of the principal cities, as in the
days immediately succeeding the conquest ; but they live in
a quarter apart, as they and their families have done for
generations, without intermingling with the rest of the people.
They are forbidden to hold land, and do not trade, and
lead a life of indolence on the pittance doled out to them.

* There is now an influential European society throughout China
(organized by Mrs. Little) to oppose this evil practice, and innumerable
Chinese societies formed in imitation of it. Three viceroys have already

condemned the practice, and numbers of little girls are already growing
up with natural feet, not to speak of grown women, who have unbound.

P

210 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

Their military exercises, with bows and arrows, are of the
feeblest nature, and I have never yet seen a Manchu regiment
armed with muskets! A fixed number of posts in the ad-
ministration are specially reserved for them, as they would
succumb were they dependent for employment upon success
in the competitive examinations with the more active-minded
Chinese. The mutual jealousy of the Chinese mandarins,
who hold, as it is, all the highest posts in the provinces,
coupled with their conservative dislike to change, alone at
the present day retains the Manchus on the throne. What
would happen, were an energetic emperor like Kangshi to
arise and attempt to take the governing power really into
his own hands, no one can tell, any more than they can
prophesy what is to be the end of the contest between the
decaying civilization of the foremost empire of the East and
the aggressive civilization of the West, now hammering at
its gates.

A Cantonese merchant, named Chen, had invited me to
dine with him in a garden in the lower city. He promised
me a dinner cooked in European style; having lived in
Shanghai and Canton, he was supposed to comprehend the
wants of the barbarian appetite. On arriving, I was intro-
duced to two Cantonese mandarins who were reclining on
the dais at the head of the guest-hall, whiling away the time
with the unfragrant drug. Shortly afterwards the rest of the
party arrived, and we sat down to the round table in the
centre, seven in all. The dinner proved, unfortunately, a
most decided failure; the strange meats were unacceptable
to the other guests, and, in order to show due appreciation
of my host’s hospitality, I had to make up for my fellow-
guests’ indifference by setting to as best I could. As it was
a very hot day, I asked leave to remove my coat, after the
Chinese fashion, and set to with a will. Certainly if anything

A Mixed Dinner 2I1

were needed to convince the company of their superior
native refinement, as compared with our barbaric methods
of eating, this feast was enough. In lieu of the chicken
being neatly cut up, and stewed in a delicate sauce, all ready
for serving to the mouth with the elegant chopsticks, a rough,
plain boiled fowl was set on the table, with no carving-knife
to dissect it with, Each guest had been provided with a
miniature ivory-handled knife and a two-pronged fork, and
after much effort we succeeded in gnawing at fragments of
the carcase, unaccompanied with bread or vegetables. Then
came a leg of mutton. roasted “ rare,” not bad in itself, but
without potatoes and bread somewhat unpalatable. Fortu-
nately, we had some Chinese dishes to finish up with, and
a cup of fragrant tea with which to wash down the hetero-
geneous repast. After experience of this meal I began to
think myself less a victim than I did before, in being
generally restricted in my travels to a Chinese cuisine pure
and simple. Dinner over, we adjourned to another court,
in which a local artist had made ready to photograph us in
a group. The man was a Cantonese, who had been brought
from Shanghai by some English traveller, whose name I
could not succeed in deciphering from his Chinese version,
and who had brought him thus far to photograph the scenery
en route. The man had settled in Chung-king, and was
apparently doing a thriving business» The group was
successfully taken, and forms an interesting record of my
visit. I may here mention that I heard the photographer
expatiating to the mandarins, his fellow-countrymen, upon
the benefit he had derived from consulting Dr. Edwards, of
the China Inland Mission in this city, for ophthalmia, from
which he had been long suffering, and of which he was now
cured: he dwelt upon the fact of the doctor’s receiving no
payment (“yi ko chien pu yao”), but the idea of becoming

Eee Through the YVang-tse Gorges

a Christian seemed never to have entered his mind. The
man was well off, and could well afford to pay for his treat-
ment. After this, I said adieu to my kind host and his two
mandarin friends, who held office in Chéng-tu, the provincial
capital, and returned home to pass the evening in semi-
obscurity as usual. No wonder that the Chinese, with no
new books and no newspapers to amuse them, gradually
take to passing their evenings over the social pipe. As with
our lower classes, who are addicted to the public-houses
from much the same causes, if the Chinese are to be weaned
from the opium-pipe, they must be provided with amuse-
ments and more exciting occupations, such as the admission
of Western enterprises can alone afford.

( 213. )

CHAPTER X.
THE DOWNWARD VOYAGE,

Adieux—A crowded boat—Change to a salt-junk—A strange
manceuvre—A day on the rocks—Sham tea—Equipage of the
junk—The gorges once more—Mooring for the night—Delays—
Change to a wupan—Pirates—Féng Tu.

Ir was now nearing the end of April, and the time for my
departure had come. I called to make my adieux to the
members of the China Inland Mission, who have a staff of
five or six members in this city. The China Inland or
Taylor Mission is the most active of all the Protestant
societies in China, and the only one that had, at that date,
followed the example of the Catholics in adopting the native
dress. They lead hard lives, and work on a most ungrateful
soil; but as they believe themselves to be simply carrying
out the commands of their Master, and leave the results to
Him, the fact that there are so few genuine Protestant
converts in China does not appear to trouble them. In fact,
seeing that one of the few dond jide converts to Protestantism
devastated thirteen out of the eighteen provinces in his
endeavours to Christianize his fellow-countrymen a little
more rapidly than the missionaries were doing, the Chinese
may deem it fortunate that not more enthusiastic converts
are made. “Hung shiu chuen,” the Tai-ping king, accepted
the example and teachings of the old Jewish captains in all

214 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

their literal ghastliness, and slew the idolators without mercy.
Sixteen years of desperate fighting (1848-64) passed away
before his bandit hordes were broken up, and his capital,
Nanking, given to the flames, in which he and all his house-
hold perished. Nearly twenty years have now elapsed, and
the still desolate appearance of this, the southern capital,
remains a witness and a warning. It is practically impossible
to convert a Chinaman to Christianity, and leave him still
a faithful member of his family, and a loyal subject to the
powers that be. Confucianism is so interwoven with family
observances and political doctrines, that if the one is over-
thrown the rest follow. ‘I come not to bring peace, but
a sword,” has been but too truly exemplified in this country,
and nothing but the weakness of the Chinese enables them
to tolerate missionaries as they do. “Take away your
opium and your missionaries,” Prince Kung is reported to
have said in taking leave of Sir Rutherford Alcock. An
instructive comment upon this is the fact that few foreigners
in China ever employ a Christian or an opium-smoker if they
can help it. Itis not too generally known that a practical
people like the Dutch, who hold the larger portion of the
Malay race under their rule, forbid propagandism entirely,
throughout the whole extent of their vast territories. We
cannot, then, wonder at the Chinese desiring to do the like,
and in common justice should allow the Government free
action in a question of internal economy like this—especially
where, under extra-territoriality, each individual mission is
allowed free rein to its idiosyncracies, and the Chinese
officials responsible for order, find it impossible to control
the resulting zmperia in imperio.

After endless delays, and constant urging on my part, it
had been at length arranged that we should make our start
down river on the morrow. Room had been engaged in

Passage in a Cargo Junk 215

a small boat carrying a light freight, and with good luck we
might hope to be back in Ichang in a week’s time. A fare-
well dinner was given me in the evening by a piece-goods
hong with whom I had arranged some business, the hour, as
customary, being four o’clock. We sat down, a mixed party
of sixteen ; a party of eight at each of the two square tables,
including two Mohammedans, of whom there are a goodly
number scattered throughout the West of China. The “ Hui
hui” (literally, “returners”) are not recognizable from the
other Chinese, in whose customs and worship they freely
join ; but they are rigid abstainers from swine’s flesh, and in
consequence at our to-day’s feast beef was substituted.

The last day of April had now come, and after breakfast at
ten o’clock, the customary hour, we managed to effect a start.
We set out on foot to the Tai-ping gate, accompanied by a
train of friends who had assembled to see us off. At the
foot of the long staircase of 220 steps, which leads down
from the gate to the river, and is of the respectable width of
fully twenty feet, a small cargo boat was in waiting, with our
luggage, to convey us on board our river-going junk, which
was moored ready laden a short distance up the Kia-ling
or Siao river, in which safe anchorage the vessels loading
general cargo lie, the marvellous natural harbour in the
main river, situated just below Kiang-peh ting, being appro-
priated by the huge, almost unmanageable salt-junks.
Descending the stream past the city walls, a few minutes
brought us to the mouth of the Siao river, up against the
current of which a short pull soon put us alongside our
craft. She turned out to be a shen po tze, a little larger
than that in which I had ascended, with the difference on
the present occasion of her being fully laden and apparently
offering no accommodation for passengers whatever. The
forehold, which is decked with loose planks, their edges

216 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

resting on narrow waterways, gives accommodation to the
crew and their stores, and contains the rice-boiler and
the kitchen, which is only opened at and immediately
before the meal hours, when, with the wind ahead, volumes
of acrid smoke stream through the opened cabin to the
great delectation of the hungry passengers. The stern
accommodates the skipper, who is usually the owner, and
therein the little cargo he usually carries as a private
venture is stowed. On the present occasion our vessel
was laden with ducks’ feathers, destined for sale in
Shanghai, and eventually, probably, for Mincing Lane.
These feathers were packed in huge bales of bamboo
matting, and reached to within three feet of the roof. Aft
a small depression had been left, just affording squatting-
room for our party of three round a dwarf table at meal-
times. Seeing that, unlike the voyage up, on the down-
stream journey there is no opportunity of quitting the boat,
except at night, and that I was anxious, too, to see some-
thing of the scenery going down, I at once made up my
mind that this vessel was impracticable. Chinese super-
cargoes are perfectly content with such accommodation ;
they ask nothing. better than to enjoy an earthly Nirvana
for a week, free from anxiety and undisturbed by anything
but the periodical call to meals. However, I waited to see
what my friends would say, knowing that there was no use
in protesting too soon, and that there was no likelihood of
our getting away that day. Sure enough, after scrambling
through the boat with no little difficulty, they all set upon
the unfortunate man who had been entrusted with the en-
gaging of our passages, and roundly abused him. The
passage was cried off, and it was decided to look out for
something better. As it would be impossible to find
private accommodation elsewhere that afternoon, and as I

Passage in a Salt-Junk 217

firmly withstood the proposal to return on shore, with the
prospect of having to say all our adieux over again two
days hence, we remained in our boat, squatting on the top
of our luggage, while a young fellow from the hong was
sent to see whether he could procure us room in a salt-junk,
of which, at this season, the one most favourable for the
navigation, a fleet of five or six sail daily. After three
weary hours’ sitting in the sun, the time being passed by
an interchange of pipes, and the consumption of some of
the packets of cakes and sweetmeats with which kind friends
had speeded my departure, our “runner” returned. He had
found places for us in a salt-junk sailing the next morning,
and as it was now sunset we all adjourned.

Below the mouth of the Kia-ling ho, and abreast of the
city of Kiang-peh ting,* which, as I have previously described,
forms practically the northern suburb of Chung-king, the
river widens out, and a long ledge of rocks stretches up
and down, forming a barrier between the rapid current of
the main stream, and a lake-like expanse between it and
the steep hills on the left bank. Here the salt-junks are
moored in tiers, their bows to the shore. Approaching by
the stern, we scrambled over the high gunwale aft, and
entered the skipper’s cabin, on the floor of which, being
the raised main-deck, we at once spread our quilts, and
shortly afterwards went supperless to bed. The fare down,
a distance of eight days, had been agreed upon at sixteen
dollars for the three of us, including a portion of the
sailors’ plain boiled rice three times a day, “ trimmings,” if
wanted, having to be provided by ourselves. Upon the
floor of this cabin slept also the pilot, a fine, tall, well-built
Chinaman, with a handsome oval face, dignified in manners,

* This city has just been captured by the anti-missionary rebel, Vii
Mantse, who is said to be now (October, 1898) besieging Chung-king itself.

218 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

and evidently imbued with a sense of the dignity of his
calling; immediately behind, and in a small cabin par-
titioned off from the rest, slept the skipper with his wife
and two children; the cabin-boy was apportioned to our
division. We were to start at daylight.

Sure enough at early dawn the following morning I was
awoke by the skipper, who in a gruff voice requested us to
hurry up and get our beds out of the way without delay.
Though not particularly gratified at being thus rudely dis-
turbed in my morning’s slumbers, I was consoled by the
thought that now at last we were really off, and that the
harassing delays of the last few days were at an end. Every
hour was of importance, as I had just eight days to catch
the Ichang steamer to Hankow: this vessel makes the
round trip in about ten days, and if I missed this voyage I
should be inevitably too late for the Hankow tea season,
which opens about the 12th of May. Imagine, then, my
astonishment when, still half awake, we were hurried over
the side into a large sampan, and at length given to under-
stand that we were to return to the shore. My men having
all the arrangements in their hands, and, they urging me to
submit, I remained passive, awaiting explanations later. I
found we were being rowed across the basin to the rocks in
the centre of the river. All I could make out, as long as
the boatmen were present, was that the skipper did not
wish to be seen starting with a foreigner on board. The
true inwardness of the matter I afterwards discovered to be
this. Salt isa Government monopoly throughout the empire,
and privileged licensed merchants are alone allowed to deal
in it; the salt-junks all carry an official flag, and sail in a
certain routine and on fixed days; owing to the value of
their cargo and the danger of the navigation, they are not
allowed to take passengers down-stream, lest the crew, and

A Temporary Island 219

especially the pilot, should be disturbed by them. Now, the
official inspectors were due with the junk’s clearance, shortly
after daylight, and hence our skipper’s anxiety to get rid of us.

This reef, which shuts off the still-water harbour of Lien-ue
tung from the roaring current, and the channel beyond,
in which is no anchorage, is known as the “ Liang-toh ;” it
is about a third of a mile in extent, and varies in width
from twenty to a hundred yards. It evidently forms part of
a hard sandstone ledge, through which the river has cut and
is still cutting its way, the opposite (right) bank being lined
with a terrace of precisely similar formation which projects
horizontally from the low steep range, which here, as on
the right bank, forms the immediate shore of the river in
summer, when all these rocks are entirely out of sight. At
the present moment the reef was almost covered with a
long street of substantially built bamboo-frame and mat-
walled houses which had been gradually erected last winter,
as the falling stream successively exposed the needful
foundations, the highest of which were now not more than
fifteen feet above the present level. The water had already
covered the more low-lying portions, and owing to the
recent rise, several houses from which the contents were
now being hastily removed were standing in the water;
of these the mat walls and bamboo frames were being
gradually removed and transported to the opposite shore,
No doubt during the winter a good trade is done here with
the large junk population, which justifies the unusually
spacious erections of this temporary town, We strolled on
into a roomy tea-shop, and, having bought a few “ torillas”
from an itinerant pastry-cook, sat down to Chota hazari.
A porcelain cup, containing a few green tea-leaves, was
set before each of us, boiling water poured in, and the cover
put on as usual, and lastly a huge earthenware jug of hot

220 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

water was set in the middle of the table, from which we
could replenish at leisure: all this luxury, including the
liberty, of which we freely availed ourselves, of dawdling,
Chinese fashion, as many hours as we liked over the repast,
for the sum of five copper cash. I am sorry to say,
however, that I found the tea, which had a lovely, trans-
parent green appearance, so bitter as to be undrinkable,
and I had to content myself with hot water, instead of the
refreshing cup to which, after our early rise, I had been
looking forward with most pleasant anticipation. “Cha”
in China denotes any infusion of herbs (we ourselves go so
far as to say beef-tea), and was probably used to mean an
infusion of any kind, many centuries before tea proper
_was discovered. Certainly my tea at the Liang-toh did
not contain a single leaf of Zhea sinensis ; they were
apparently all young spring willow leaves dried in the sun.
I rambled about for two or three hours, waiting for our
dilatory skipper to send for us, and thus had a fine
opportunity of examining the rocky islet upon which we
were abandoned. Its rugged outlines had been rounded
off by the water, although in places the ascents were so
steep that short staircases had been neatly cut in the rock.
The whole surface was honeycombed with perpendicular
cylindrical holes, as though bored out by a mighty auger,
from a few inches to several feet in depth, and of equally
varied diameters. In truth, a host of mighty augers had
been at work, and the tools were still 7 situ, now lying
idle at the bottom of the pits, but only waiting for the
untiring hand of nature, in the shape of the now rising
flood, to again set them in motion. The tools had been
brought from a distance, as though specially appropriated
for the work of clearing away these destructive reefs, and
consisted of boulders of porphyry and gneiss washed down

Féng-shut once more on

from the Tibetan mountains. In many places, where the
auger-holes, as one may well call them, approached the
water’s edge, their sides had been broken in, and thus
the hard rock was being rapidly disintegrated. This process
is being carried on throughout the whole river-bed, from
Tibet all the way to the great plain of Hukwang, which
is being steadily filled up with so much of the detritus as
does not find its way still lower down to the delta of the
Great River in Kiangsu. My Chinamen, seeing me poking
about and fishing up the boulders from the bottom of the
basins, most of which contained a pool of stagnant and by
no means fragrant water, of course imagined I was looking
for gold; they received an attempted explanation of the
phenomena, that were so interesting to me, with an air of
absolute incredulity. It is as hard to lead a Chinaman to
believe that natural phenomena are due to natural causes,
and not due to mysterious polytheistic agencies, as it is in
the West to convince a devout believer in witchcraft of the
non-existence, or rather non-interference, of the supernatural
in current mundane affairs. Whether the old philosophers
of China ever had any real insight into the workings of
nature, such as is credited to them by their enthusiastic
admirers, I entirely doubt; but certain it is, that at the
present day Féng-shui, although a delightful superstition,
greatly interferes with progress, and prevents the search
for real remedies for the many ills from which humanity,
and Chinese humanity especially, is still cruelly suffering.
This living and travelling for any length of time with such
unsympathetic creatures as the ordinary Chinaman, is
exasperating to a degree, and I do not wonder at those
Europeans who have cast their lot in the interior of China
appearing eccentric, to say the least, to their fellow-country-
men, when they again emerge into real civilization. For

Bo Through the Vang-tse Gorges

it is not as though one were living with savages: the China-
man has all the outward manifestations of a refined civiliza-
tion, and hence the greater disappointment when you do
pierce the crust. The only way to travel here with any
profit is to conceal your real feelings and appear to
sympathize with all their comical beliefs: this the Chinaman
travelling in the West does to perfection, every Chinese
child being an actor by nature. Thus our few Chinese
visitors in Europe have acquired a reputation for acuteness
far beyond their merits, and it is curious to see, in the rare
instances where, as in their published journals, the veil has
been lifted, how trivial are their ideas, and how totally they
fail to grasp the grand truths which lie at the bottom of
Western progress. Hence the disappointment we experience
at the absence of all influence in favour of Western ideas,
displayed by returned Chinamen, diplomats no less than
merchants.

The sun was now blazing forth out of a cloudless sky, and
the reflection of its rays from the bare rocks drove me back
to the glad shelter of the tea-shop, until at ten o’clock, after
nearly five hours’ waiting, our boat arrived. The junk mean-
while had got under way, and was slowly creeping through
the still waters of the pool, looking, with her low deck and
dozen sweeps on either side, like a huge centipede. We
soon caught her up in the sampan, and, when we got on
board, found her drifting down-stream at the rate of five
miles an hour—drifting, I say rightly, for though we had no
less than sixty men toiling at the sweeps, their united efforts
did no more than keep the head of the heavily laden craft
pointed down-stream. On the down trip the junks, large
and small, unstep their masts, and lash them alongside ;
this feature, together with the high deck-houses aft, culminat-
ing in the lofty stern, gives them an ungainly look. The

Salt Junk, about 70 Tons, with Screw-oars or ‘‘ Yuloes"’ alongside, moored
near Entrance to Ichang Gorge: bound down River, Mast lashed along-
side. {Zo face p. 222.

Junks versus Steam 223

mats which cover in the fore part, when the crew are
sleeping on the deck at night, or when the rain is too heavy
to proceed, are piled up on these houses, while farther
aft everything is covered with the coils of the enormous
tow-lines required for the voyage up. Our main motive power
consisted of four huge sweeps, each worked by eight men.
These were composed of young fir-trees unbarked, the thicker
end, over a foot in diameter, being in-board, with a short
plank lashed to the head in guise of paddle. Another
similar sweep, also some forty feet long, projected directly
over the bows, its paddle cutting the water in advance. This,
in conjunction with the huge barn-door of a rudder, served
to guide the lumbering craft safely through the rocks and
rapids of our course. In addition to these, two lateral
yuloes (sculls worked by a screw motion), also manned by
half a dozen men each, were attached to the sides forward of
the oars. These colossal sweeps are called by the Chinese
“che,” or “ wheel,” in contradistinction to the usual word for
oar, “jao.” Our progress through the water was extremely
slow, the men pulling the sweeps laboriously though steadily
at the rate of eleven strokes to the minute. The junk
advanced five to six feet each stroke, giving a speed of 1200
yards to the hour. In short, with good local knowledge
such as the pilots possess, and by taking the right channel in
good time, nothing more is required than to keep steerage-
way on the vessel, to enable her to avoid the whirlpools, and
to pass down the rapids in safety. The pay of each boatman
for the down journey, which, according to the state of the
water, occupies from eight to ten days, is 300 cash, besides
three meals of rice daily, with eight ounces of pork each,
three times on the voyage. For the voyage up, which
occupies thirty to forty days, the pay is 800 to 1000 cash
(about three shillings). Compare this with the pay which the

224 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

same coolie would get if on board a foreign steamer—at
least eight dollars a month, his rice costing two dollars—
with the toils of a galley-slave exchanged for almost nominal
labour. Steamers on this part of the Vang-tse would
naturally be regarded with some jealousy ; but if, as they
should do, they employed local labour, and did not bring
more strangers from other provinces than were necessary to
teach the new hands their work, opposition would soon be
disarmed. I was constantly asked when we were going to
begin running steamers, and it shows how little heart for
untried enterprises foreigners in China now possess, that (in
1883) seven years should have elapsed since the right to run
steamers on the Upper Yang-tse was acquired, under the
Chefoo Convention, without any attempt to take advantage
of the privilege having been made.

Soon after noon we, to my great disgust, brought up
alongside the bank in the “t’o” or lake-like expanse of com-
paratively smooth water at the mouth of the “ Tung lo hsia,”
or “ Brass Gong” Gorge, which, like all the gorges, seems to
turn off sharply at right angles to the river’s previous course
through a cleft in the hills, the entrance to which is entirely
hidden until you are directly opposite to it. Here, ten miles
below the city, is the first barrier, and the salt cargo had to
be again checked. Meanwhile, the laggards of our crew,
who had failed to join in Chung-king, were to come up with
us here. There was no village at this station, nothing but
a roomy bamboo house for the Customs officers, with the
customary smart gunboat in attendance. We were delayed
here four hours in the hot sun, with nothing to do but write
up my journal and watch little boys on the bank making and
launching sailing-rafts of reeds, ingenious models of the
bamboo rafts in use on the mountain streams throughout all
China. We at last unmoored, and drifted into the Gong

The Szechuan Vade Mecum 225

Gorge. The general course of the river between Ichang
and Chung-king, a distance, following its windings, of nearly
500 miles, is east by north, Chung-king being in north
latitude 29° 33’, and east longitude 107° 2'; Ichang is in
north latitude 30° 41’, and in east longitude 111° 53’, there
being thus a difference of sixty-eight geographical miles in
latitude, and of 267 miles in longitude between the two places.
According to the “Hsing Chuan pieh yao” (in pigeon-
English, “ Walkee Szechuan must want-jee”), or vade mecum
of Admiral Ho, the distance between Ichang and Pahsien
(Chung-king) is 1800 li. This, at three and a half li to
the mile, would give 514 statute miles, which probably
is not much in excess of the actual distance traversed; the
true distance, of course, never will be known until an exact
chart, on the same scale as that of the Lower Yang-tse
drawn up by our naval surveyors, has been published.
Blakiston’s, though admirable as far as it goes, and a
marvellous monument of rapid work executed under most
disadvantageous conditions, is on too small a scale to show
all the windings and abrupt twists that the river really makes.
The longer reaches run south-west and north-east, parallel to
the prevailing direction of the mountain ranges; but where
these are cut through, as they are in the constantly recurring
gorges, it is always at right angles to their axes, and in these
the prevailing course of the river is consequently north-west
and south-east. Hence the succession of sharp, picturesque
turns, with their accompanying whirlpools and rapids.

The Gong Gorge, so-named from the stone image of a
brass gong, said to be apparent on the right cliff, and from
a brass drum on the left, is cut, as usual, through a limestone
elevation, which has raised up the coal-measures, into which
tunnels run from the face of the cliff. The cliffs themselves
seem to rise in a succession of steep steps, which yield

Q

226 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

ledges just large enough for the support of a luxuriant
vegetation of cedar and bamboo. In the mouth of a small
lateral ravine, but perched high up on a rocky pinnacle, I
noticed a snug farmhouse; otherwise the gorge seemed
deserted, and constituted a wild break in the generally
continuous cultivation and smiling farms of the Szechuan
country. I do not estimate these hills at over twelve or
fifteen hundred feet above the river, which is here fully half
a mile wide. Everything about the Yang-tse Gorges is on
such a large scale that estimates of distances are not easily
formed ; that careful observer, Blakiston, in one or two
cases in which the heights he gives have since been checked
by actual measurement, is found to have under-estimated
them by fully one-third. From the deck of our junk it
appeared as though we were the sole occupants of the gorge ;
only on close inspection could I discover the upward-bound
junks toiling along close under the shore, and it required a
good field-glass to make out the gangs of trackers scrambling
over the rocky tow-path ahead of them. How swiftly we
seemed to sweep by! in a few minutes gliding by a rocky
point that had occupied us nearly as many hours in ascend-
ing. Yet, although we were not making more than six
knots over the ground, it was all too fast to enjoy the
scenery, and I was glad that I had already had the oppor-
tunity of studying it at leisure on my way up. In these
days of steam, how few places one has the opportunity of
thoroughly enjoying! Notwithstanding the many discom-
forts of Chinese travel, one is, to my thinking, more than
compensated by its absence of hurry, at least in such regions
as these, where every yard is of interest, and a new picture
opens out at every mile. A fine waterfall tumbles over the
cliff on the right bank, but its murmur is lost in the noise
of the rapid, by which the seemingly still waters of the

Mooring-Ground for Junks 227

gorge are discharged into the next reach. Passing this and
the “ Yeh lo-tze,” or “ Wild Mule,” we brought up, shortly
before sunset, in the “ Ue tsui t’o,” or “ Fish-mouth pool,”
having made sixty li, or about eighteen miles, in less than
four hours’ travel. The rise in the river had tamed down
the “ Wild Mule,” which was by no means as formidable
an obstacle as it was when we came up; as is always the
case, when the river is in flood, the water was of a rich
chocolate colour, and in a tumbler looked almost as thick
as a bond fide cup of that inestimable beverage. Millions of
tons of Tibetan soil are thus carried down every summer,
and go to raise the many yet unfilled depressions of the
great Hukwang plain, the finer particles being carried even
as far as the open estuary, a distance of two thousand five
hundred miles.

The selecting a mooring-ground for one of these big junks
is an important matter. In the first place, the water must be
deep enough to ensure that the vessel, which is always tied
up close under the bank, will not touch the ground in the
event of a fall of six or eight feet occurring in the night;
then there must be a good current at the spot, in order to
keep the water out of the leaks, yet not a current so strong
as to risk her breaking adrift. Upon rounding-to, pre-
paratory to taking up a berth for the night, the diver plunges
on shore with a line, which he makes fast to a stake in the
ground, after which one of the massive young fir trees, or
“che,” is extended from the bows to the bank as a shore,
while another is shoved out from the stern, both being
firmly lashed to “bitts” on deck, as well as to stakes driven
into the bank. Supper is then served to all hands, the crew
squatting in groups of eight or ten round the rice-tubs; and
immediately the meal is over, the mats are extended all
along the forward deck, and the crew, mostly naked, and

228 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

packed as close as herrings, are quickly wrapped in slumber
—a few, perhaps one in ten, devoting an hour or more,
before turning in, to the fascinating drug. We meanwhile
are similarly occupied, the two cabins and helm-house aft,
in which also the weary pilot spreads his bed, being filled
with passengers. I now observe the wisdom of the rule
which forbids these large cargo-junks from taking passengers.
As we sat and talked and smoked, the high voice of the
skipper’s wife resounding through all the din, I noticed the
unfortunate pilot turning over and over in his bed anxiously
trying to sleep. It was nearly eleven before our lights were
out, and then the tiny lamp of a couple of opium-smokers,
merchants bound to Hankow like ourselves, was still burning
on the bed facing my own. The pilot never leaves the helm
for a moment while the vessel is under way, except for his
meals, which, together with those of the men, are taken in
easy spots where the junk may be allowed to drift, on which
occasions the skipper temporarily takes his place. His pay
for the voyage to Shasze is twelve dollars. The skipper is
usually part owner, and his duties appear to consist mainly
in urging the crew to greater exertions in the dangerous
places. Although the crew had a head man specially for
this purpose, a true farvcewr who behaves like a maniac, yet
the skipper found it necessary to second him in his antics,
Our captain was a tallish, spare, active, erect man of about
five and fifty, with considerable .“ side,” as became the
captain of one of the largest class of vessels on these
dangerous waters, and who showed as much condescension
in pointing out, or rather in answering my questions about
the places of interest, as might the captain of a Cunarder.
I got to sleep at last, although with everything closed it was
uncomfortably warm, and when I awoke the next morning
we were already under way.

A Chinese Boarding-school 229

The men rise at earliest dawn, now fiye o’clock, clear
away the mats, which are stowed on the deck-houses aft,
and are served with their hot breakfast before getting under
way. Half an hour afterwards we entered on the “ Wen-
tang hsia,” or “ Warm pool gorge,” which opens on the long
reach of Mutung. This is one of the long reaches which
tun parallel with the prevailing ranges, that is, south-west
and north-east. The river flows in a steep ravine, and urges
its way by numerous channels through a maze of rocks, now
rising some fifteen feet above the water, but in summer
entirely covered, at which time the navigation is attended
with no little danger. At this season the main channel is
plainly marked, and is of ample width, nowhere less than
a hundred yards; but seen end on from the low deck, and
foreshortened, the maze appears at first sight impassable.
This reach ends in the rapid of the Double Dragon (“ Soang
lung tan”), and brings us to the industrious mat-making
village of “ Lo chi,” so named from a dangerous rock opposite,
the ‘Lo chi,” or “ Dripping Stone.” We passed Lo chi at
8.30, and at 9.15 arrived in the “ Shan-pei t’o,” or “ Fan back
reach,” having made, according to the native itinerary,
thirty li, or eight miles in three-quarters of an hour—the
real distance being probably five miles. The “Shan pei
to” is behind the “Fan rock,” and facing it is the “ Fan
cliff,” a nasty point for upward-bound junks to round; below
this, on the south bank, is the “‘ Koan yin miau,” one of the
numerous temples to the Goddess of Mercy that one finds
scattered throughout the empire, and especially in the south ;
then past the “San kiang tsao,” or “Race of the three rivers,”
to the picturesque old city of “Chang sho” (“longevity”).
Here one of my companions, a native of Chung-king, in-
formed me he had been two years at a boarding-school, the
first time I ever heard of the existence of such an institution

230 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

in China. Chang-show hsien is said by the itinerary to be
thirty li from Shan pei t’o, a distance which occupies us
exactly an hour. But if I proceed to enumerate all the
rapids and rocks of the river, of which the “ Gazetteer”
gives over a thousand between Chung-king and Ichang, I
shall never get to my journey’s end. In fact, we hurried
past them at such a rate that it was quite impossible to keep
pace with the numerous places of interest on either bank.
Many spots that I had missed on the way up displayed
greater prominence on the downward voyage, and many a
picturesque scene, that had become indelibly impressed on
my memory in the tedious ascent, now escaped with a
passing glance. We no sooner arrived at a rapid than we
were shot past it, and had no time to realize the danger,
which, though apparently less than in the ascent, is in
reality far more serious. At the rapid of Wang-chia ‘tan,
just above Chang-show, a big salt-junk, which had sailed
from Chung-king the morning previous to our own departure,
lay stranded on the boulders of a large cape of shingle,
which extends along the south bank, and so narrows the
channel as to form a small rapid; others come to grief on
the rocks or in the whirlpools, and go down bodily. With
these lumbering craft a quick helm and perfect discipline
are necessary, and above all taking the right channel in
good time, so as to avoid the eddies, in which, if the junk
is once caught, she becomes unmanageable. There is no
anchoring anywhere, and no anchors are carried. As on
the upward voyage, so now, everything possible to excite
the crew was done; on approaching a rapid, four guns
were fired out of a curious four-barrelled piece, the tubes
strengthened by iron rings welded on, with a wooden handle
by which the cabin-boy, upon whom devolved this duty,
held it on the bulwarks. The gang-master danced from

The Voyageurs of the Yang-tse 231

oar to oar, his weight having apparently no effect whatever
upon the huge tree-stems as he leapt from one to the other.
Gesticulating and shouting at the top of his voice, he
belaboured the bare backs of the men with his rattan, and
thus succeeded possibly in bringing up our speed at the
critical points to a mile an hour; then the skipper would
take his turn in urging the unfortunate “tui jao tih” (oars-
men) to exert themselves to the utmost; meanwhile the
men themselves shout like demons, and stamp on the loose
deck boards as fast as they can move their feet. An on-
looker suddenly set down here would imagine pandemonium
set loose. Iwent to the door of the foremost cabin, looking
out on the deck, and gazed on the strange scene; my smiles
(they were all facing me at the time, rowing, for a change,
with their backs to the bow) set the men off laughing and
shouting still louder, when the surly skipper beckoned to
me to go in again, and upon my afterwards demanding an
explanation, told me that my presence disturbed the men.
I believe myself, however, that my being there cheered
and amused them, and made them work all the harder.
Blakiston tells us that he will ever hold in pleasant memory
the intrepid voyageurs, as he calls them, of the Upper
Yang-tse: most assuredly a more cruelly worked or more
poorly paid, and withal a better-tempered set of fellows are
not to be met with the whole world over. Dirty and ill-
paid, mostly covered from head to foot with itch-sores, and
treated like dogs, they work with a will, and are always
ready for a joke. During the whole of my trip, I, in my
ridiculous foreign dress, never heard an uncivil word from
one of them; and, as I have related in my account of the
upward journey, on more than one occasion, when rambling
along the shore I found myself unexpectedly caught in a tight
place, they good-naturedly came to my assistance, With all

232 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

this hurly-burly, the progress of the junk through the water
could only be detected by throwing a biscuit over the side
and carefully watching its slow recession. No wonder, then,
as the Chinese say, one junk in ten gets stranded, and one
in twenty totally lost each voyage.

We drifted rapidly on; past the “ Hwang-ue ling,” or
“Herring Mountain,” and the rock-strewn reach of the
“Shih chia te,” “Stone family pool,” the “ Tranquil rock,”
the “ Scholar’s rapid,” the “‘ Fire-wind rapid,” and into the
“Scissors gorge,” a picturesque wooden glen some ten miles
above Fu-chow ; thence past the hamlet of “Sai Feng tu,”
literally, ‘‘ Rival Feng-tu,” the celebrated home of the ruler
of Hades, through the “Black Dragon gorge,” and the
narrows of the “Tortoise gate,” and at length by the mouth
of the “ Dragon King,” we emerged in the reach at the foot
of which stands the important city of Fu-chow. It was now
three o’clock, and the usual afternoon up-river breeze, so
invaluable to ascending junks, had set in; but this same
breeze was fatal to our further progress that day, and much
to my chagrin, I shortly afterwards found the junk’s head
swung round and a berth for the night, in a spot on the right
bank combining all desiderata, taken up. With their weak
motive power, a very slight breeze interferes with the
steering, and as, in this complicated navigation, there is
danger in being caught a hair’s breadth out of the proper
course, a head wind, in all but the straight, clear reaches
which are very few and far between, compels the down-
ward-bound junks to anchor, or rather, seeing that anchoring
is unknown in the Upper Yang-tse, to tie up to the bank in
the manner described above. On this occasion we had
immediately before us the dangerous right-angled turn which
the river takes at Fu-chow, whereby, and also owing to the
influx of the waters of the Chung-tan ho, now in flood, one

Picturesque Mountain Cities 233

of the worst whirlpools in the river is created. The rocks
and the extensive sandbank directly opposite the town,
upon which I noticed so many of the queer “ twisted stern”
junks peculiar to this place hauled up for repair, and the
new ones being built, were now entirely submerged, with
nothing but the curls of the whirlpools to mark the dangerous
banks, which nearly extend to mid-stream. A curious
characteristic of the two main affluents (and the sole
navigable ones) of the Yang-tse between Chung-king and
Hankow—the stream that drains the Tung-ting Lake, and
this the Chung-tan ho—is that they flow in a line continuous
with the course of the river below them, and appear to the
ascending traveller to be the main stream itself, the river
proper turning aside at right angles to its branches. At
these points naturally a fierce “ chow-chow” water exists,
and where, as opposite Fu-chow, the land is bold and steep-
.to, a frowning cliff forms the point, and entirely conceals
the channel, by which the traveller has to ascend, from view.
The city of Fu-chow is built in the angle of the two rivers,
and, rising from the water up to the steep slope of the
wooded hill at its back, looks down proudly on the long
ravine below, and forms a conspicuous object in the distance
for hours before it is reached in the toilsome ascent. Every
one of these mountain cities yields a striking and distinct
picture, once seen never to be forgotten, and they would
well repay the visit of an artist competent to portray them.
Some such are represented in Garnier’s splendid work on
the exploration of the Mei-kong, and nowhere else that I
know of; the wild water in the foreground, and the weird
Chinese architecture, in such perfect harmony with the
general landscape, form an ensembé as unique as it is artistic.

The spot at which we were moored is known as the “ Li
chéng yuen,” or “ Garden of undeflected gain.” In mooring

234 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

here, our pilot had unconsciously followed the instructions
given in Admiral Ho’s recently published itinerary, who, in
speaking of this place, writes, “ Upon arriving at Li chéng
yuen, when the water is high, this is a good place to moor ;
should an up-wind be met with, sudden and fierce as a herd
of swine, this is the time to stop; if the Fu-chow small river
is in flood, it is usually impossible to proceed. At low-water
time, with an up-river wind, it is also right to stop here and
avoid it.”

We landed and walked along the rocky shore to the city.
We found the people in the suburb below the walls busily
engaged in removing their houses out of the reach of the
stealthily approaching flood. Entering a huge bamboo-
walled godown, from which we observed steam to be issuing,
we found that the building was one of the Government salt
depots, from which all the salt bales had been removed, and
that the frugal-minded godown-keepers were now boiling
down the sweepings and the upper stratum of the earthen
floor and evaporating from them a fine jet-coloured salt.
So valuable does the Government monopoly render this
indispensable and usually cheap article, that although pro-

. duced in the immediate neighbourhood, and even, as we saw
on the way up, in the river-bed itself, salt is retailed in
Szechuan at fifty cash a catty, equal to twopence a pound.
In Hankow, situated midway between the “salina” of Yang-
chow and the salt-wells of Szechuan, the price has risen to
eighty cash, while descending the river still farther to
Shanghai, which derives its supply from the neighbouring
Chusan Islands, where, with the enormous junk trade,
smuggling largely prevails, we find the price fallen to twenty-
eight cash, or little over a penny per pound. On the other
hand, in districts comparatively remote from the main lines of
communication, and where the small traffic is not conducive

Salt and Seaweed 235

to smuggling, the price at once- increases enormously. In
Hwui-chow foo, the centre of the celebrated Fu-chow tea
districts, I found the price, when travelling there in 1864, to
be 180 cash the catty, equal to ninepence the pound. Four
years previously in Yen-chow foo, 100 miles to the south-west,
the exigencies of the then raging rebellion had so advanced
the Zin or transit and octroz dues, that this high price was
again doubled. How far this artificially high price of salt
is responsible for the repulsive prevalence of skin disease,
I leave it to be imagined. One effect it has, and that is to
cause a large import of seaweed from the Japan Islands. Sea-
weed prepared in one of many fashions is eaten at almost every
dinner-table in China ; certainly I was present at no meal in
Chung-king at which this condiment was not served. The
salt gabelle is, however, one of the few important sources of
revenue in the empire, and the salt commissioner in each
province takes rank after the governor. A junk found
smuggling salt is confiscated on the spot, and the unfortunate
hulk of such an offender may occasionally be seen exposed
on the bank, alongside a custom-house station, its body sawn
completely in two, a witness of the inexorability of the
Chinese “ dazio.”

Fu-chow, though an important centre of junk navigation, is
of comparatively small extent, and it did not take us long to
find our way through the dirty suburb to the city gate. The
walls are thick and low, not over twenty feet high including
the battlements ; the archway of the gate would not admit a
mounted horseman. The main street contains some good
shops, and is thronged with traffic, through which women,
bearing loads of dust-coal on their backs packed in the
picturesque pei-lo of the country, jostle their way. I tried
here again to purchase one of these “ back baskets” peculiar
to the gorge country, and which afford such a pleasing change

236 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

from the eternal carrying-pole of the Chinese coolie, but in
vain. No porter would part with one, and there were no
shops for their sale ; like most of the articles in common use
in China, they are all manufactured away in the homes of the
peasantry as necessity requires, and no capital is allowed to
remain locked up in stock. The pei-lo are somewhat
conical-shaped baskets with expanding mouths, neatly woven
out of split bamboo, the shoulder-straps being of the same
material, the whole fitting comfortably on the back and
enabling heavy weights, up to 250 pounds, to be carried with
a minimum of fatigue. Children are also largely carried in
them, snugly packed in an erect position. I tried likewise
to obtain a model of the extraordinary “wai pi-ku” junk
used on the Kung-tan river, and induced the proprietor of a
picture-shop, owned by a relative of my Chung-king com-
panion, to undertake the commission, advancing him five
dollars for the purpose. I afterwards strolled along the top
of the wall, the only promenade in a Chinese town where
every one of the five senses is not perpetually offended, and
regaled myself with the magnificent view up the valley of the
Kung-tan. This, the east wall, is built on the edge of a
cliff which falls away perpendicularly to the margin of the
rushing stream below ; the sand-flats, together with the bam-
boo town and adjacent junk fleet which existed here on our
voyage up, having entirely disappeared. Half of the city
enclosure seemed, as usual, to be occupied with public build-
ings, temples, gardens, and literary monuments, whose red
walls and coloured tile roofs give these cities, especially when
built on a steep slope, sucha gay appearance from a distance.
The buildings were mostly in bad repair, and, as every-
where in these degenerate days, little used, the fine court-
yards being overgrown with grass and weeds.

I tried here to find a small boat to take us on to Ichang

Passage in a “ Tender” 237

at once, and J was tired of the constant delays of our salt
junk, and we were promised still further detentions at the
Li-kin stations lower down. I was willing, too, to lose fifteen
dollars to escape living another fifteen days in such close
quarters with my fellow-passengers, while the privacy of a
small boat would be more conducive to quiet observation of
the rapids and the keeping up of my journal and sketch-
book. But nothing suitable was obtainable, and we returned
in the dusk to supper and another night on our salt-junk.
Going ashore afterwards for a stroll with my cheroot, I
entered into conversation with some of the junk-men
belonging to vessels that had come down during my absence
and moored near us for the night. They told me that with
the up-river wind sure to prevail at this season, and the
inevitable delay at the Kwei-kwan barrier, the salt-junks
would not get down in less than ten days, while a “ wupan ”
would do the journey in five. One of these had recently
passed down, and would certainly moor for the night at
Fu-chow ; she was empty, andI should probably be able to
engage her. These “ wupans,” or, as they are here called,
“wu pa’rh” (literally, five planks: the common “ sampans”
or open boats of the ports being “three planks”), are the
sampans of the Upper Yang-tse ; they are larger and have
more freeboard, and they carry a square, classically cut lug,
which, together with the mast, is stowed away for the down-
ward voyage. These wu pa’rh act as tenders to the big
upward-bound junks—carry their tow-lines ashore, and
transport their crews from bank to bank at the crossings.
Although not affording much accommodation, they are
eminently safe boats to travel by, their crews being familiar
with every rock and eddy, while, if they do touch, their
tough but elastic bottoms of hardwood (li-mu, a kind of
oak) bound off again, where a laden junk comes to total

238 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

grief. They are not procurable for the upward voyage, being
all engaged as tenders, nor would they prove desirable for a
lengthened sojourn, an arched mat amidships forming the
sole protection from the weather; but for the short run
down-stream, they are mosthandy. I have much wanted to
engage one of these originally at Chung-king, but my China-
men would not hear of it. However, I now insisted upon my
companion going down to Fu-chow in the dark, and en-
deavouring to procure the boat. I then turned in, hoping
for the best. While spreading my pu-kai (bedding of cotton
quilt), one of my fellow-passengers, who slept in the next
compartment, begged me to turn my bed round, and sleep
with my head against the panel that divided us. As his
motive was “ Féng-shui,” the religion of China, I assented
with a good grace. I knew it was consonant with the pro-
prieties to sleep head to head and feet to feet, but I was not
aware before that the rule applied to the occupants of adjoin-
ing cabins. My attendant, with whom I afterwards discussed
the matter, remarked that Chinamen regarded propriety under
all circumstances. I retorted, ‘“ Where is the propriety of
observing a trifle like this, when the more urgent propriety
of allowing the pilot to get a quiet night’s rest is entirely
disregarded ?”

Next morning I wasawoke from my first sleep at one a.m.
by the splash of oars alongside—a welcome sound, which
told me that the wupan had been secured. My friend had
settled everything, and we were to start at dawn. The
wupan, with its crew of six men, including the laota, who
was assisted by his wife, had been hired for fifteen dollars,
under guarantee to land us in Ichang in five days’ time.

Our luggage and stores having been transported to the
wupan, we were off again at six o’clock, and the sun had not
risen ere we were round the point, and rapidly descending

“92 ‘J asf of | ‘pidey MaN Jo ‘ue) UIYS ayy dn yunf Suey siexoury,

A Creeping Nest 2 39

the reach towards Féng-tu. At this point, some 300 feet
above the water, is erected the tomb of Cho-hwang, the tutor
of the Emperor Tow-kwang, who ordered this fine tomb to
be erected for his preceptor in his native province.

The fine weather, which had been continuous for the past
two months, now at last began to break up, the prayers
for rain, the fasts, and the closing of the south gates of
the cities, which we had observed on our upward voyage,
having been at length successful. A thick mist enveloped
the summits of the hills on either side, giving breadth to the
view, but promising an uncomfortable voyage in our small,
ill-protected vessel. A strong head wind set in, and our
crew, who had hitherto been content to let the boat drift
with the current, had now to work hard at the oars in order
to keep headway on her. A short, broad junk, with a long,
high-roofed house, manned by a dozen rowers protected
under a mat awning, well named a “ pa wo’rh,” or “ creeping
nest,” that had so far kept company with us, was now com-
pelled to bring up ; the ascending junks moored under the
rocky bank were almost invisible, and we seemed to have the
mighty stream—here three-quarters of a mile wide—all to
ourselves. The rain now came down heavily, and the men,
unprovided with the coir rain-coats which are worn on the
lower river, had to come aft and couch under the mats for
shelter, Meanwhile we drifted on, spinning round in the
eddies in a manner that rendered me at last quite giddy.
We continued this until noon, when, on approaching the
dangerous reefs above Féng-tu, we were forced at last to
moor to the bank. A noticeable feature of the ‘‘ Chuan river,”
already mentioned, is that, no matter how hard it blows, a sea
is never raised, the ceaseless eddies and the ascending and
descending columns of water breaking up each ripple as soon
as it is formed.

240 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

Between the cities of Fu-chow and Féng-tu, a distance of
thirty-five miles, the itinerary gives a list of nine rapids and
five races (tsao), in addition to an enumeration of sixteen
rocks, to be carefully rounded in the ascent. In truth, there
is no tranquil water anywhere in the river from Ichang up-
wards ; it is one long, seething cauldron, which only accurate
local knowledge and constant practice enable the hardy
Szechuan boatmen to traverse in safety. The spot where we
now moored, with our head and stern attached to loose
boulders on the bank, was called the “Tsao mén hsia,” or
“ Furnace Gate Gorge,” the picturesque reach immediately
above Féng-tu, as wild a spot as any on the river. The
cliffs on either bank rise almost vertically for six or seven
hundred feet, while behind rise conical peaks twice or three
times that height, their summits now hidden in the clouds.
On narrow ledges in the limestone rock, at spots one would
deem barely accessible to monkeys, minute patches of barley,
now being harvested, are visible; here, too, as throughout
Szechuan, many of the crests are surmounted by stone battle-
ments, built as refuges from the many wandering hordes of
rebels and of unpaid troops by which this province, no less
than its neighbours, has been periodically devastated. It is
curious still to see painted up on the rocks here and there, in
big white letters, the words, “Ho tao pu ching,” z.e. “ Water-
way not clear.” This does not, as might be imagined,
allude to the numerous rocks, whose presence, indeed, is
almost self-evident without any such notice, but to the river-
pirates and petty water-thieves who still infest nearly all the
inland water-courses of China, notwithstanding the numerous
revenue and police cruisers constantly patrolling them. To
these four words are usually added four more characters,
meaning, “Small boats should anchor early.” At eleven
o’clock the weather cleared, although a fresh up-river breeze

A Quick Descent 241

was still blowing. We pushed out from the shore, and
drifted down the formidable “Tsan pei tan,” or “ Silkworm
Back Rapid,”—so-called from the formation of the rock by
which it is produced—and spinning through the boiling
waters, taking two complete turns in the whirlpool below,
which our Lao-ta informed us were de rigueur at this spot, we
swept past Féng-tu at four o’clock, doing in a couple of
hours a distance which occupied a day on the way up. The
maze of reefs, through which we then threaded our way with
such painful toil, were now mostly covered, with only the
roar of the surging water to indicate their presence. The
danger was now much greater, none but a skilful pilot, able
to take the right channel in time, being able to pass in safety.
To one not familiar with the place, the danger of being swept
on a rock and dashed in pieces seems appalling; only for a
few moments, however. Scarcely has one had time to realize
the peril, than he finds himself tranquilly drifting in the smooth
water below. We passed the twin city of Féng-tu—the one
on the hill-slope, with its imposing walls enclosing a vast
empty space; the other a busy trading-mart, squeezed in
between the river-bank and the foot of the steep hills behind.

Below Féng-tu is a long reach three-quarters of a mile in
width, and seven or eight miles long, which terminates in
one of the numerous cross ranges through which the river
breaks its way, turning off suddenly at right angles, until, the
obstructing range past, it takes another sharp turn in the
opposite direction, and resumes its original course of E.N.E.
The valley here, as throughout the whole distance above
Ichang, is no wider than the river-bed. Here the left bank
is also steep, with room for a few scanty patches of barley on
narrow ledges here and there. The right bank, however, is
composed of softer material, and its more gentle undulations
admit of a rich cultivation.

R

242 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

CHAPTER XI.

HANKOW,

Return to Ichang—Hankow—Changes in the river—Lifeboats—
Accidents—The ‘‘ awakening” of China—Pliny on the Chinese.

Tue last day of our downward journey now lay before us.
The wild country of the “‘ Yao-tsa Ho,” and the long zigzag
reaches of the Ichang Gorge, alone lay between us and the
return to “Western civilization,’ as represented by the
advanced guard of foreigners residing in Ichang. As we
slid down rapid after rapid in the hourly increasing current,
it was difficult to realize the arduous struggle we had
sustained with each projecting rock in our toilsome ascent.
We moored for the last night at Hwang ling Miao, the point
in the upward journey that porphyry and granitic rocks are
first met with; and going ashore for a stroll before sunset,
I had my last look at the wild valley, with its scattered piles
of huge rocks illuminated by the setting sun. This valley
forms an exception to the continuous ranges of calcareous
and sedimentary rocks through which the river cuts its way
in its course from Ping-shan, the highest navigable spot to
the plains of Hu-peh, a distance of 800 miles. The range
out of which this valley has been cut, and of which Hwang

Return to Hankow 243

ling Miao marks the eastern termination, would seem to form
the axial centre of elevation of the whole of this mountain
district. On its flanks, to the east and to the west, lie the
gently tilted strata of sedimentary rocks, through which the
channel flows in clean-cut gorges. Here, on the other hand,
the water has disintegrated the crystalline material, and left
the less soluble rocks strewn around in colossal fragments.
Through and past these gigantic stone-heaps the river
threads its way, and, at points where the water is not visible,
the valley floor exhibits nothing but a vast expanse of
barren, broken rocks, while the slopes beyond are gleaming
in their rich spring verdure. ‘Tedious work it is for the
ascending junks, as the unfortunate trackers toil painfully
over the successive headlands composed of angular rock
fragments. Numerous lifeboats are stationed here, as in all
the dangerous parts of the river.

Hurrying down through the Ichang Gorge, the scenery as
we approached the city seemed tame to a degree, after the
grand country we had just been traversing. The only
interesting object is the “Ko tao shan,” “ Mount of the
Taoist (hermit) Ko,” which, seen from this aspect, looked
like a perfect pyramid, of the same shape and size as that of
Cheops. It is this pyramid which forms the bane of the
Ichang Féng-shui, and which the good people of Ichang are
now spending myriads of taels to counteract.

The river, now in early May, had risen sufficiently to
allow of the steamer Kiangtung, of the China Merchants’
Company, making her first voyage of the season, and in her
I returned to Hankow, making in thirty-six hours the voyage
which had occupied nearly a month in the ascent. Below
Ichang the river was nearly bank-full, and the roofs of the
houses were just visible behind the big embankments, much
reminding one of Holland and of Dutch scenery generally.

244 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

Hankow, at which my voyage terminated, is situated 600
nautical miles from the mouth, and the river here is nearly
a mile wide, the depth of water such that the largest ocean-
steamers come up every summer to load tea. This great
inland mart is built on a mud-flat situated at the point of
junction of the great Han river, which is navigable some
five hundred miles to the north-west, and the Yang-tse.
The name Hankow means “Han mouth.” This spot is
the centre of a great plain of alluvium, interspersed with
steep, rocky, island-like hills, and from the summit of one
of these, which is situated in Han-yang—as the town on the
opposite side of the Han is called—a fine view is to be had
over the three united cities of Wuchang, Hanyang, and
Hankow. The celebrated Abbé Huc, who passed through
long before the country had been depopulated by the great
rebellion, credits the three towns together with a population
of 5,000,000. To-day possibly the whole may amount to
I,000,000—certainly not more. The spot is said to owe
its prosperity to its curiously auspicious site. Here the
dragon, the snake, and the tortoise are all represented, and
join in perfect harmony to perfect the Féng-shui. North of
the river, the steep hill of Hanyang forms the tortoise, a
projecting rock, which juts out into the river at its foot,
being the head. On the head of the tortoise is built a
handsome three-storied temple, which serves to fix the
tortoise to the spot, where his protruding nose arrests the
downward current, making a backwater below it, and thus
obviating the possibly too rapid removal of the wealth
brought down from above. On the opposite shore the
folds of a gigantic snake may be traced twisting in graceful
curves through the walled city of Wuchang ; his tail rests
on the level ground beyond the south wall, and is retained
there by a pagoda placed on its tip; his snout protrudes

Changes in the River-bed 245

slightly into the river in a rocky point, which faces the
tortoise head, and has likewise its corresponding eddy
behind it. This rock had its surmounting pavilion, the
famous Hoa Hoa Lo, a substantial four-storied tower
standing on a forest of high wooden pillars, and said to
date from the Ming dynasty. Lamentable to narrate, this
tower, the most conspicuous and picturesque object in the
view across the river from the English bund, was (in 1884)
utterly destroyed by fire, and this untoward disturbance of
the snake will, it is feared, produce results disastrous to the
three cities. Already, in the following winter, an enormous
sandbank, over a mile in length, rose up in a few days, and
the deep water off the Hankow bund suddenly became dry
land. This land extended nearly halfway across the river,
and was rapidly covered with temporary shops for the
supply of the wants of the passing junk population, while
the foreign steamers, which had previously discharged their
cargoes alongside the bund (a fine stone quay fifty feet in
height), had to anchor half a mile away. Fortunately for
the port, however, this bank was cut away again by the
current in the following year. The river water being so
highly charged with sedimentary matter, it is only necessary
to put some impediment in the way of the current, such as
will produce still water, to insure a deposition of the silt,
which in a short time will assume vast dimensions. In this
instance, a freshet in the Han, meeting the main stream at
right angles, acted as a dam, and caused this bank to form
below it.

The Yang-tse lifeboats are the only honest Government
organization I have ever met with in China. They were
set out in their present form, and stationed at each
dangerous spot all the way from Ichang to Chung-king, by
one ‘“ Admiral” Ho, who has his head-quarters at Ichang,

246 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

and is responsible for the police of the great waterway, and
the protection of the numerous travellers on it from its
many dangers. Of these, in his well-arranged, illustrated
“Yang-tse Pilot,” or, as it is literally entitled, ‘“ Vade
mecum to Szechuan,” Admiral Ho enumerates about a
thousand, and adds directions how they may best be
avoided. The lifeboat service was recently (in 1883)
instrumental in rescuing one of our consuls, Mr. Christopher
Gardner, who was wrecked in the Ching T’an; and it is a
pity that our Government did not give the indefatigable
boatmen there stationed some official acknowledgment of
their action, as I believe it would have been highly valued.
The sailors only receive about sixpence a day wages, but
are rewarded by rooo cash for every life saved, and by
800 cash for every corpse—irrespective whether it be male
or female—so the lifeboat regulations state. The boats are
very strongly built, of great beam, and, with their varnished
sides and gaily uniformed crew, are remarkably smart-
looking. They are constantly cruising round and round—
up the eddies and down the rapids, keenly on the look-out
for a disaster.

Although accidents are not infrequent, yet in proportion
to the vast traffic their number can hardly be deemed
excessive. Careful inquiries, made during my residence at
Ichang, have led me to the conclusion that the loss of junks
and merchandise in the rapids between Ichang and Chung-
king amounts to about four per cent. of the value of the
traffic.* This includes the damage by water to goods
afterwards salved, which form by far the larger proportion
of the losses. The loss of life is not large, as the junks,
after striking a rock, generally succeed in safely reaching

* The new rapid at Yiinyang (formed by a landslip in September,
1896) has since doubled this risk.

Lncrease in Junk Traffic 247

the shore in the tranquil bights below the rapids. Of the
value of accurate statistics, the Chinese have not the
slightest idea, and hence it is impossible to speak accurately
on this or any other point in China where numbers are in
any way concerned, However, one thing is certain—there
is no insurance among the Chinese, so that the losses, when
they do occur, are often ruinous. Hence there is little
doubt that steamers would be welcomed by the merchants,
and that, were a line once running to Chung-king, the
uninsurable junks would be gradually abandoned; then, with
reduced freights, and the regularity of steam, the Szechuan
people would ship to the east their varied and inexhaustible
supplies of produce in largely increased quantity, thus
enabling them materially to augment their purchases of
foreign manufactures in return, The junks would soon
find compensation in the increased traffic that steamers
on the main river would bring to its numerous and extensive
affluents. This has proved itself in a remarkable manner
on the Lower Vang-tse. Since Hankow was thrown open
to steamers in 1860, the direct traffic has increased until
now it employs a daily steamer of 2000 tons, and nine-
tenths of the traffic between that port and Shanghai is now
carried on by steam; yet there are more junks on the river
than ever. These are engaged in transhipping produce
landed by the steamers at the seven river ports—to which
steamers are at present confined—to remoter districts,
accessible by means of the numerous lakes and large river
systems communicating with the Yang-tse.

Judging by recent articles in the London press, it seems
to be believed at home that the Chinese are turning over a
new leaf, and welcoming Western progress. My own ex-
perience is that the desire of the officials to avail them-
selves of our superior mechanical appliances is confined to

248 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

implements of war. ‘“ Let us avail ourselves of our enforced
intercourse with the barbarians in order to keep them
out!” is the burden of the great patriot, Tseng Kwo-Fan’s
memorial to the throne, submitted shortly before his death.
This is but natural: with half a dozen hungry nations
knocking at their doors, and the fate of Turkey and Egypt
before them, the Chinese are at their wits’ ends to devise a
means to retain their antiquated civilization whole and un-
contaminated from the upstart barbarian. It is a hopeless
task, but one cannot help sympathizing with them. Their
talent, in the shape of natural resources as great as those of
the United States, lies buried and undeveloped, and they will
be forced to give an account of it. Tseng Kwo-Fan has
been canonized, and the temple built by the Emperor in
honour of his names stands on a hill in Wu-chang, the scene
of his labours in the flesh, The Marquis Tseng, late
ambassador in England, was his eldest son. Railways,
which we are all so anxiously waiting for, have been com-
menced tentatively with their own resources; but the large
networks, now planned, are to be carried out with the aid of
foreign experience, and with foreign capital. The destruc-
tion of the little railroad that ran from Shanghai to Woosung,
in 1874, is an instance of the dogged resistance the officials
make to any innovation too forcibly pressed upon them.
The Chinese people themselves were delighted with this ex-
perimental railway of ten miles length, which united Shang-
hai to its port of Woosung, and the trains were crowded as
long as they were allowed to run.* The local authorities had
of course given their consent, but the central Government had
never been consulted. Sir Thomas Wade, unwisely in my
opinion, allowed the Peking officials to purchase the line,

* This line has now (October, 1898) been rebuilt, and its opening
just reported,

first Railway in China 249

thinking they would then work it themselves. He did not
understand the Chinese. No sooner bought, than the line
was pulled up and thrown into the sea, and Shanghai, the
commercial capital of China—built up as it has been by
foreign enterprise—is still dependent upon house-boats and
a few steam-launches for communication with its port
of Woosung, distant by water fourteen miles. The road (of
nine miles) on which the rails were laid, and which for a time
was used for a driving road, has been allowed to decay, and
communication has again reverted to the old footpaths. A
crucial test of the feeling in the Chinese bureaucracy, in the
face of foreign innovations, is exhibited in their attitude
towards the Shanghai Waterworks. Alongside the magnifi-
cent foreign settlement of Shanghai, with its fine, wide, well-
kept streets, its grand quays and avenues of shade-trees, its
water, gas and electric light, stands the inexpressibly dirty
native city. The natives themselves fully appreciate the
difference, for, notwithstanding the high municipal taxation
and the despotic foreign rule of the “settlement,” they have’
flocked in to the land set apart for foreigners in such
numbers (about 250,000) that their presence has become
a nuisance to all of the European residents, except to the
landowners, whose rents have enormously increased in
consequence. Meanwhile, the high Chinese officials, to
whom the contrast is a bitter eyesore, sulk behind their
crumbling walls ; and when the Waterworks Company apply
for leave to confer the boon of a pure water supply on the
native city, will have none of it until such time as they shall
be able to do the work themselves and in their own way.

I have not space to enter on a disquisition on the motives,
many worthy of respect, which induce this thorough-going
conservatism. On the river, they dread the army of trackers
being thrown out of work ; while their traditional objection

250 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

to mining, and indeed to every industry but agriculture,
prevents the superabundant population finding employment
in the many new enterprises which steam communication
would inevitably open up, were the restrictions that now
forbid all enterprises of the kind freely removed.

I have often twitted the Chinese officials at Ichang upon
our having to import the coal for our steamers all the way
from Japan and tooo miles up the Yang-tse river, when
Ichang lies upon the border of the largest and easiest
accessible coal-field in the world (Richthofen), Yet such is
the fact. No foreigner is allowed to have anything to do
with mines, and even the natives are discouraged from
mining on a large scale owing to the dread the mandarins
have to any assemblage of unruly men, such as miners are
supposed to be. Thus the mineral wealth of the great West
lies undeveloped, while thousands of able-bodied men go
about begging their bread. Nor are there any signs of a
change in the immediate future. Were it otherwise, the
masses, who earn a bare subsistence by serving as beasts
of burden, would have more elevating occupations opened
out for them, and might be earning decent wages, while
adding to the general prosperity of their native land.

Returned once more to the comforts and amenities of our
European civilization after a three months’ absence amongst
the Chinese proper, I was mostlyistruck by the total absence
of all change, and by the intense stagnation of this peculiar
people. Such as the Ser Marco Polo describes them, such
are they to-day. Indeed, we may go back ten centuries
further—to the time of Pliny—and find them described by
the same characteristics ; and for this reason I will conclude
by quoting Pliny’s words, which are as much to the point
now as they were on the day they were written (Pliny,
* Ammian.” i. 23, c. 6) :—

Plinys Account of China ae

“Seres mites quidem, sed et ipsis feris persimiles, ccetus
reliquorum mortalium fugiunt, commercia expectant.

“Agunt ipsi quietius Seres, armorum semper et prceliorum
expertes, utque hominibus sedatis et placidis otium est volupta-
bile, nulli finitimorum molesti.

“Cceli apud eos jocunda, salubrisque temperies, zeris facies
munda, leniumque ventorum commodissimus flatus: et abunde
silvee sublucidze, a quibus arborum fetus aquarum asperginibus
crebris velut queedam vellera molientes, ex lanugine et liquore
mixtam subilitatem tenerrimam pectunt, nentesque subtemina
conficiunt sericum, ad usus antehac nobilium, nunc etiam infi-
morum sine ulla discretione proficiens.

“Nec minus celebres tenuissimis lanis, quas ex arboribus suze
regiones collectas, conficiendis pretiosis vestibus in omnes terra
partes mittere solebant.”

“The Chinese, though of mild disposition, yet having some-
thing of the brute nature, avoid intercourse with other mortals,
but yet are ready to trade and barter.

“The Chinese live quietly, always keeping clear of arms and
warfare, and as peaceful and quiet men are fond of repose, they
cause their neighbours no trouble.

“ They have a pleasant, healthy climate ; a clear atmosphere ;
gentle, favourable winds ; in very many places dusky woods (of
mulberry-trees), from which, working the fleecy produce of the
trees with frequent sprinklings of water, they comb off a very
delicate and fine substance—a mixture of the down and moisture
—and sprinkling the thread of it they make silk, which was
formerly only used by the nobles, but now by the lowest classes
without any distinction.

“Nor are they less celebrated for a most delicate wool
(cotton), which they collect from the trees in their own country,
and send to all parts of the world to be made into costly
garments.”

Excepting in the account of the manufacture of silk, about
which the ancients held very hazy notions, it is remarkable
to find them in possession of so much accurate knowledge of

252 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

this remote nation. Their peculiar aversion to war and love
of ease notwithstanding, the Chinese have suffered more
disastrously from internal convulsions and disastrous wars
than almost any people in history. Their history seems to
prove the fact that, for nations as for individuals, the
worst way to obtain peace and quietness is to ostensibly
seek it.

As an instance of their unwarlike (and Christian) disposi-
tion, and of their devotion to appearances above everything,
Captain Hall, of the famous JVemesis, the first steamer that
rounded the Cape, tells a good story of our first war with
China, in 1839. Told off to take a fort below Canton, he
moored his ship off the place until the Chinese commandant
came off in his barge to call on the strange fireship. In
his silks. and satins he was assisted up the gangway and
taken to the captain’s room; the portly Chinaman turned
out to be an ex-compradore who had been given the post
as a potential barbarian tamer, or, at least, familiar with his
wiles. Upon the British captain giving him the unpleasing
information that the ship had been sent to demand the
surrender of the fort, or, failing this, to capture it by force,
the Chinese commandant remarked that if he surrendered
he would lose his head. The captain replied expressing his
sorrow to be compelled in that case to open fire at daylight
next morning. The Chinaman calmly replied: “ All night;
you along my belong good flen; you no puttee pillee, my
no puttee pillee; bimeby you come ashore, my pay you
fort ; so fashion no lose face, no spoilem man.” * And the
fort was honestly handed over on the following day.

* “All right, you are my good friend; neither side need shot their

guns; then you land and I will surrender the fort ; thus appearances.
will be saved and no one hurt.”

‘Seg amvf of | *9S}-SUBA JO YUL YINOG Wood UIYL} MIA,
as}-Sue_A pue YON ay} Woy ‘oary Suy-ergy Jo uonoun/ ye eMsuiuag Ayooy uo ymq ‘Sury-sunyD jo Ay

{253 4

CHAPTER XII.

THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE YANG-TSE VALLEY.

Length and fall—Advance of the delta—Direction of river’s course
—The gorges and rapids—Absence of roads—Coal-fields—The
flora and fauna—Mineral wealth.

THE Yang-tse River, which is known to the Chinese as the
“Kiang,” ae “The River” par excellence, the “ Chang
Kiang,” or the “Long River,” and more commonly still as
the “Ta Kiang,” or “Great River,” has a course of about
3000 miles in length. It traverses the country from west
to east, and may be said to divide the Chinese Empire
into two nearly equal portions,—eight provinces being
situated on its left bank, with the same number on the
south: two only, Ngan-hui and Kiang-su, lying partly on
both banks. For two-thirds of this distance, it runs through
mountain land in a continuous ravine, the valley being
nowhere wider than the river-bed. In the lower portion of
its course, which forms the remaining third of the distance,
the valley widens out, and the stream flows through an
alluvial plain, following generally the southern boundary of
the valley, except where it forces its way athwart the lime-
stone range, which forms the division between the provinces
of Hu-peh and Kiang-si, above the port of Kiu-kiang, past
the vertical cliffs called Split Hill and Cock’s Head in our

254 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

English charts, until it emerges into its delta proder at
Kiang-yin, 110 miles above the mouth of its estuary at
Yang-tse Cape. The stream leaves the mountains at the
Ichang Gorge, 960 nautical miles from its mouth; and some
fifty miles below this point the boulders and gravel of the
Upper River give place to banks of soft alluvium, the outline
of which varies every season, notwithstanding the gigantic
embankments with which it is sought to retain the stream in
its channel. These begin a short distance above the great
emporium of Shasze, situated in the midst of the Hu-peh
plain, eighty-three miles below Ichang. This, by the way,
is one of the important towns, with which we were debarred
from trading, although it is regularly passed by our steamers
on their voyages between the so-called open ports, until the
Japanese forced it open, in reality as well as in name, by
the Simonoseki treaty. Shasze has at least ten times the
trade of Ichang. Here we find the river, at the time of its
summer floods, running with a six-knot current at a level of
ten or fifteen feet above that of the surrounding country,
the great dyke on the north bank being continuous nearly to
Hankow ; while owing to the decay of the embankments
the south bank is open to the floods as far as the eye can
reach, a vast inland sea is then formed, which mingles its
waters with those of the Tung-ting Lake proper, from which
its outline is indistinguishable. From this point downwards
the fall in the bed is comparatively slight.

A comparison of three years’ simultaneous barometrical
readings at Chung-king (in Szechuan) and Sikawei (the
Jesuit observatory near Shanghai), and the résumé of
some 4000 observations enumerated in Mr. Baber’s paper
on the subject, exhibit the almost incredibly small difference
of level between the two places of 630 feet. Now, as the
average rate of the current down the rapids, which, large

Volume of Water 255

and sinall, obstruct the river throughout the whole distance
of nearly 500 nautical miles between Chung-king and Ichang,
is not less than five knots, a fall of twelve inches to the
mile between these two places cannot be considered ex-
cessive. This would give a total of soo as the fall for these
500 miles, leaving only 130 feet for the 960 miles between
Ichang and the sea. The great fall in the river-bed is, as
is only natural, in the upper half of its course, where the
stream rushes as an unnavigable mountain torrent through
the defiles of the almost impenetrable ranges of Western
Szechuan and Thibet, and where Mr. Baber estimates the
fall at not less than six feet to the mile. The average
speed of the comparatively more tranquil lower half of the
river’s current, say from Ping-shan, the city situated at the
head of the present junk navigation, some 1700 nautical
miles from the sea, is still, as Captain Blakiston points out,
double that of the Nile and Amazon, and three times that of
the Ganges.

The volume of water brought down per second, as
measured by the same observer, is, at Ichang in June,
675,800 cubic feet: that at Hankow at the same period,
according to Dr. Guppy, of H.M.S. Hornet, being nearly
1,000,000 cubic feet, the increase being due to the influx
from the Tung-ting Lake, and from the Han River, the only
true affluents between these two points. Compared with
these figures, it is curious to note that the water discharged
into the sea by the old familiar Thames is estimated at
2300 cubic feet per second. Reducing the figures given by
Captain Blakiston for Ichang in June, to the average of the
whole year, on the basis of Dr. Guppy’s monthly observa-
tions in Hankow, we find the discharge at the former port
to be actually 560,000 feet per second for the whole year
round, which would make the volume of water at Ichang,

256 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

960 miles from the sea, just 244 times that of the Thames
at London.

The comparison of the sediment, annually brought down
by the respective rivers at these two points, is as 2,000,000
cubic feet to 5,000,000,000, or as 1 to 2500. Taking the
drainage area of the Yang-tse at 600,000 square miles, and
estimating the sediment discharge as above, both Captain
Blakiston’s and Dr. Guppy’s figures give a rate of subaerial
denudation for the whole catchment basin, of about one
foot in 3000 years. Estimating four-fifths of this amount of
sediment as employed in raising the banks and filling up the
expanse of its inferior valley while inundated by the summer
floods, the remaining one-fifth is sufficient to create annually
a fresh island in the Pacific one mile square, and fifty
fathoms deep. The rapid rate at which the coast-line is
gaining on the ocean, startling ocular evidence of which is
presented to every old resident of Shanghai, is thus not
surprising. In the very near future the innumerable rocky
islands, which fringe the coast, and which now stand out of
the shallow muddy waters of the estuary, will look down
upon embanked paddy fields, precisely as the hills inland
from Shanghai now stand out from the fields, which have
been raised by the same process in recent geological times.

It seems to me a matter of no doubt, that in quite recent
times the Vang-tse River, upon leaving the mountains,
discharged its waters into the ocean through a series of
lakes, the remains of which still occupy a considerable
portion of the valley in winter, and which in summer are
enlarged by the floods to almost their original surface area.
The first of these lakes is comprised within the boundaries
of the present province of Hu-peh, and at the highest floods,
which occur every eighth or tenth year, making sport of
the numberless huge embankments, the whole country is

Drainage of the Vang-tse Bax. : 257

covered to the depth of several feet; a vast inland sea is
formed in the centre of China, a few tree-tops, and roofs of
houses still standing, alone breaking the boundless water
horizon. When we see that each summer nearly half an
inch of sediment is deposited, and the level of the surround-
ing country raised each year to that extent, we cannot help
being struck with the fact that there must have been a vast
lake bottom to fill,—seeing that the soil set free by the
erosion of the Szechuan watercourses to a level many
hundred feet below that of the original plain has failed even
now entirely to fillit up. Another striking fact is the very
recent formation of the existing landscape. In short—
China, the oldest country politically, is geologically one of the
newest. This fact applies more especially to Central and
Northern China, within which were comprised, until recently,
the limits of the Chinese Empire. A few years more,
geologically speaking, and this and the other lake basins
will be entirely filled, and the whole sediment brought down
will be available for promoting the advance of the coast-
line, an advance even now so rapid that within the lifetime
of men now living Shanghai threatens to be left an inland
city unapproachable by tidal waters. This first lake is
formed by the damming-up of the river seawards by the
Wusueh range of hills, and is drained into the next lower
basins, that of the Nganhui province, by a comparatively
confined channel through which the river flows with a rapid
current—much as the Detroit River drains Lake Huron into
Lake Ene.

The next lake bed, I take to be represented by the plain
north of Kiukiang, and the valley west of Nganking together
with the Poyang Lake region: this is again bounded sea-
wards by a cross range, through which the river has burst
its way, in the narrow winding rock-infested channel known

$

258 i , Through the Yang-tse Gorges

as “Hen point.” Below this, again, we have the wide plain,
of which Wu-hu forms the centre, the eastern outlet of which
is through the gate of “the Pillars.” We then come to
Nanking, to the south of which now stretches a large alluvial
plain, the lower portion of which is still, for a considerable
period of the year, below the level of the river, and which
apparently formerly, in connection with the Tai-Hu (‘‘ Great
Lake”) of Kiangnan, formed part of the ancient estuary of
the Yang-tse, at the time when the river here turned south-
ward and debouched into the Hang-chow Bay. At present
we find these ancient lakes practically filled up, being our-
selves only just in time to see the finishing touches given by
the annual summer floods to the land that now occupies
their site. Formerly the bulk of the sediment was arrested
in these lakes, and the turn of the delta had not yet
come. At the same time, however, we have no reason
to expect that, as the banks become thus rapidly raised,
the floods will soon cease altogether, natural as this result
would at first sight seem to be: for the bed of the
river must be rising simultaneously in the ratio of its
extension seawards, and thus higher banks are constantly
needed.

Marco Polo, 600 years ago, in his chapter on the “ Great
River Kian,” says, “It is in some places ten miles wide, in
others eight, in others six, and it is more than roo days’
journey in length from one end to the other,—it seems,
indeed, more like a sea than a river.” Now if, as is
probable, Marco visited the river during the summer floods,
there is no exaggeration whatever in these statements, and
it is curious to find Colonel Yule criticizing this passage as
exaggerated, and giving as a probable explanation, the
suggestion that Marco’s expressions about the river were
accompanied by a mental reference to the term “ Dalai,”

Sources of the Vang-tse 259

the sea, which the Mongols appear to have given to the
river.

We thus ascend by a series of wide steps, well described
by the Chinese as “ Men-ka’rh,” or thresholds, and over
each of which flows one of the famous rapids—“ effrayantes
cataractes,” as they are termed by the worthy Pere Amand
David, the celebrated naturalist—but at the same time
rapids amenable to steam power in the opinion of the few
other Europeans who have ascended them. ‘These steps
lead us by way of the great gorges, cut through the lime-
stone ranges, which bound Szechuan on the east and shut
in its basin from the wide plain of ‘“ Hukwang” (Hu-peh),
the province of “ Broad Lakes,” which begins in the level
country immediately below Ichang.

If we turn to a map of Indo-China, we are at once struck
with a peculiarity in the Yang-tse, as distinguished from the
other great rivers, which, together with it, take their rise in
the eastern edge of the Thibetan plateau. Four rivers, the
Yang-tse, the Salween, the Meikong, and the Irrawaddy,
here start seawards. All four in the early part of their
courses flow together in deep parallel ravines running north
and south, but the three latter alone continue to follow the
prevailing lay of the mountain ranges, and persevere in
their southward course to the Indian Ocean and Cochin
China Sea. The Yang-tse or the Murui-Ussu (Blue Water),
as the river is designated by the Thibetans, and which is
called lower down, where it flows through Western Szechuan,
“ Kin-sha Kiang,” z.e. “Gold-dust River” by the Chinese,—
behaves differently. After accompanying its less vigorous
neighbours down through nearly ten degrees of latitude,
upon reaching the vicinity of Talifu in Viinnan, it suddenly
recurves northward, abandons its associates, and strikes out
a course of its own, athwart transverse rows of mountain

260 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

barriers, which fail to turn it aside from its steady progress
to the Eastern Sea. Owing to the circumstance of its
course being thus mainly in a direction transverse to the
higher ranges traversed by it, we find its channel thence down
to the point of its emergence in the plains of Hu-peh, to be
aseries of zigzags, consisting of a succession of reaches
running at right angles to each other alternately S.W.
and N.E., and N.W, and S.E. In the former it runs in
comparatively open ravines, parallel to the radial axes of
the mountains enclosing it; in the latter it breaks through
them in the magnificent clefts of the gorges. The strata in
these latter are for the most part horizontal, or only slightly
inclined, and it would appear that they are in part natural
splits in the rock, and in part gorges, formed purely by
erosion like that below the falls of Niagara. In some of
the gorges, and these spots naturally afford the most striking
views, the split takes a sharp rectangular turn such as is
only likely to occur in horizontal strata with vertical cleavage,
the absence of more extended denudation being very striking
and giving, I should say, unmistakable proof of their com-
paratively recent origin. The confused mountain mass,
which separates Hu-peh from Szechuan, commences a
short distance below Ichang, and extends to the city of
Kwei-chow, a distance of nearly 150 miles from east to
west. The radial axis of elevation appears to be a mass
of igneous rock, chiefly gneiss, traversed by dykes of
porphyry in vertical strata. These rocks have not been cut
through, but have been decomposed by the water, and their
débris now tower’ in Brobdingnagian stone-heaps, filling up
the desert-looking valley, which breaks the continuity of
the grand limestone gorges of Ichang and Nui-kan (Lukan
of Blakiston). The difficult piece of river, which rushes
on amidst these rock-piles, is known to the native boatmen

The Red Basin of Szechuan 261

as the “Yao-tsa Ho.” This basin of the Yao-tsa Ho
is to-day a wide depression, filled with low scattered
rock-piles, in the midst of a surrounding mass of lofty pre-
cipitous limestone mountains which lie on its flanks at a very
gentle inclination. These extend eastwards to the mouth
of the Ichang gorge, dipping under the sandstone and coarse
conglomerate which form the outlying spurs of the range.
The city of Ichang stands upon this conglomerate, which,
with its superincumbent sandstone, dips in its turn under,
and is lost in the alluvial plain, which begins about fifty
miles further down. West of the ‘ Yao-tsa Ho” basin we
again traverse the limestone until, on the other side, it meets
and is lost under the new red sandstone plateau of Szechuan.
As we ascend the river further, we meet, however, with fresh
cross ranges of the same limestone formation, upon the flanks
of which the inexhaustible coal seams of the province lie
conveniently tilted.

Above and beyond Kwei-chow fu we enter the red basin
of Richthofen, where the river traverses the vast new sand-
stone formation of Eastern Szechuan in a ravine cut down
tooo feet or more below the surface. Here, owing to the
softer nature of the rock, the rapids are less violent, although
we have always a fierce current to contend against. These
conditions prevail until we reach the fork of the Yang-tse
at Su-chow,* where on the one hand we meet the “ Kin-sha”
River, flowing as a mountain torrent through inaccessible
gorges, and on the other the “ Min,” which, though the smaller
stream, appears to be regarded by the Chinese as the true
“ Kiang ”’—probably in view of its greater navigability, while
the Kin-sha sweeps round the Mountains of the Sun, in-
habited by the wild Lolo tribes, and is useless for traffic.
By the fork of the Min River we ascend in light-draft boats

* Not to be confounded with Soochow, near Shanghai,

262 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

to the unique plateau of Chéng-tu, the political capital of the
province. This plateau is our next step up from Chung-king,
and lies another 600 feet higher. Beyond this plain, famous
for its fertility and elaborate system of irrigation, which
spreads in a north-westerly and south-westerly direction,
ninety miles in length by forty in width, the mountains on
the west (the nearest conspicuous peak of which is the
famous, sacred, temple-covered O-shan, or Mount Omi) rise
rapidly to a height of 22,000 feet and upwards, and form
the eastern bulwarks of the great Thibetan plateau beyond.
This alluvial plain of Chéng-tu, through which now flows a
network of clear streams with gravelly beds, appears once to
have been a lake whose basin was gradually filled with the
boulders and coarser detritus from these western mountains.
Below this we have evidence of the great inland sea, that
probably in tertiary times occupied the now rugged country
of Eastern Szechuan, and in which the coal measures with
the superincumbent sandstones, of which the surface is now
composed, were deposited. At a subsequent period, as the
land rose, the surface of the former sea-bed must have
been gradually exposed to denudation, and the channels of
the present rivers began to be cut out; and if, as seems
probable, a dam then existed on the eastern borders of the
sea, it had not been broken through, nor had the gorges
through which the water subsequently escaped seawards then
been opened. Through and across this sandstone plain run,
at wide intervals, a succession of parallel ranges of limestone
mountains, all tending more or less in a north-north-east and
south-south-west direction, and rising to a height of two to
three thousand feet above the sea, forming the “ cross ranges”
through which the Yang-tse and its affluents now break their
way in a series of magnificent gorges. The intervening
plateaux, originally level, except where tilted up against the

“Cross Ranges” 263

flanks of these “cross ranges,” have since been worn away
by erosion into a fantastically rugged landscape, recalling
the picturesque scenery of the Saxon Switzerland, but on a
grander scale. Every stream, large and small, has cut its
way down and flows in a steep ravine. Hence the land-roads
are nothing but the usual narrow footpaths broken by a suc-
cession of ascending and descending stone staircases, up and
down which the sturdy little Kwei-chow ponies scamper with
astonishing nonchalance. It is in spots where these sand-
stone cliffs overhang the streams, that we find the numerous
square porthole-looking entrances to the dwellings of the
aboriginal inhabitants of the country, who are spoken of by
the modern inhabitants of the province as “ Mantse.” Coal
underlies the whole formation, and is exposed at the surface
in the gorges of the Yang-tse and its affluents, where these
cut through the cross ranges. It is largely mined by the
primitive Chinese methods, and forms the staple fuel of the
country ; the junks at the upper waters all have their brick
chimney, and at meal times, when vomiting the soft-coal-
smoke, have all the appearance of primitive steamers.

The limestone mountains of the great gorges are equally
cut by ravines splitting them up in every direction. Each
little stream has cut out its gorge, often more picturesque,
though perhaps less imposing, than those of the Great River
with its rocks and rapids. Up these side glens there is no
other path than the bed of the stream, which has to be per-
petually crossed and recrossed on slippery stepping-stones.
The vegetation is most luxuriant, the country being well-
watered, and the limestone d@ébris affording a most favourable
soil, Apart from the ferns, which, as might be expected, are
found in endless variety, flowering plants, many of which have
hitherto been credited alone to Japan, cover the rocks in
dazzling profusion. A few of the most common to be met

264 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

with in a day’s walk up any of the glens are: camellia, rose,
larkspur, Chinese daisy (Boltonia Indica), begonia, sunflower,
virgin lily, bignonia, wistaria, lavender, gardenia, honeysuckle,
yellow jasmine, orange lily, besides many others equally
beautiful, which have no common English names. The
cottage gardens abound with pomegranates, loquats, peaches,
plums, orange and other fruit-trees. On the higher slopes,
above the precipices, we find glorious woods of walnut and
chestnut-trees, while the useful tallow-tree, with its beautiful
tinted foliage and exuberant scented blossom, grows every-
where. This tree is the Excalcaria Sebifera of Mueller, and
is known in Szechuan as the “ Chuan tse” shu (tree), and in
Hu-pehas the “ Mu tse” shu.

Fine forest-trees universal in Szechuan, and which are to
be found surrounding almost every village, are :-—

“Nan mu” (Wood of the South) or literally, “South
wood,” a red hard-wood, used for the pillars of houses,
Persea namu oliv., now referred to the genus machilus.

“T’an mu,” yielding a close-grained hard-wood employed
for rammers, in the ubiquitous oil-presses, probably a species
of Dalbergia. (For this and the following botanical names
I am indebted to Dr. Henry, of the Imperial Maritime
Customs, an indefatigable observer.)

“ Chou mu,” an oak with white wood.

“Ti mu,” a kind of oak, very tough and elastic, the
planking of which is much sought after for boats navigating
these rock-infested streams.

“Sung mu” (Pinus massoniana),

“Peh mu” (Cupressus funebris).

“Sha mu” (Cunninghames sinensis), a tree of great beauty
and excellent for planking.

Then we have three kinds of “T’ung” tree—all widely
spread,

flora of Szechuan 265

“Wu tung ” (Sterculia platinifolia).

“ Pao tung” (Pazzlonia imperialis).

And lastly, the

“T’ung tse” (Adeurites cordata M.). This is the celebrated
wood-oil tree, the produce of which is in use all over China
for houses, boats, and furniture, and a most excellent oil it
is. The junk-men employ nothing else on their vessels but
a coating of this oil, rubbed on by the hand at the annual
overhaul in the dry winter season, and thus preserve them
free from rot and fit for use for literally an indefinite period.
This tree is well worth the attention of the Indian authorities,
and ought long ere this to have been introduced into British
India. It must not be confounded with the

“Chi shu” (Rhus vernifera), the likewise most valuable
varnish-tree.

The commonest tree, seen everywhere along the banks of
the Great River and its subsidiary streams, is the “ Liu shu”
of Hu-peh, or the “ Ma liu” of Szechuan, often translated
by foreigners “ willow-tree,” which it is not, but Prerocarpa
stenoptera.

Two soap-trees are remarkable as furnishing an article of
export to Eastern China in the shape of the seed-pods, which,
after being dried in the sun, are used just as they are, in
lieu of cakes of soap, for washing. There are two principal
varieties, viz. :—

1. The commoner—short red pods and very fine delicate
acacia-like foliage (Gymnocladus sinensis).

2. With long, flat, black pods (Gleditschia sinensis).

Evergreens of all kinds abound, as might be expected in
30° northern latitude. I will only mention the “Hoang
k6,” which, with its exuberant dark-green foliage, is a great
ornament to the country, and a magnificent shade-tree to
the tired traveller, It is in special favour as a decoration

266 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

to shrines. It is known to botanists as Aicus infectoria. It
is of the fig genus, but a casual observer might easily mistake
it fora banyan. As an adornment to shrines its place is
taken up in Hu-peh by the “Tung-ch’ing” (Xylosma
Japonica S. and Z,), a \aurel-like tree, with rich scented
blossom. Nor must I omit the holly, and the “La shu”
(Ligustrum lucidum) among my list of common evergreens.
With so rich a flora, and such abundance of flowers and
fruit, a corresponding richness in the insect world and in
the fauna generally might be expected. I must refer those
more specially interested to Amand David, and go on simply
enumerating what struck me most as a passing traveller.
Gorgeous butterflies; fireflies, the most brilliant I have
ever seen; small birds innumerable, notwithstanding the
numerous kites and eagles (in Chinese, “Ai ying,” cliff
hawk), the commonest of which are the golden oriole
(Urocina sinensis), and the blue jays and the ubiquitous
swallows. Two kinds of little rock-tits with red tails—one
of them with a white top-knot, hop about the rocks by the
water’s edge. Back in the mountains are the golden (who
seldom come below 5000 feet), the silver, and Reeves’
pheasants, the former of which I only saw exhibited in cages
for sale, while the latter’s tail feathers are used everywhere
to decorate hats on the stage. These Reeves’ pheasants
especially affect the conglomerate mountains opposite
Ichang, where several have been bagged by European
sportsmen. Thrushes and minas are also common, and
the cormorant, which, as well as the tame otter, is every-
where employed in fishing. Of mammalia one sees little
beyond the domesticated ox, pig, goat, and dog—the latter
as great a nuisance to the stranger in Szechuan as he is
elsewhere. One hears much of the leopards which come
down from the mountains in the night, and rob the pigstyes ;

fish in the Yang-tse River 267

and of the monkeys, flocks of which attack the maize-
patches on the high hill-slopes in the early dawn. The
more precipitous peaks are the home of the “Shan-yang”
(mountain-goat), a sort of chamois: one or two specimens
have been shot by adventurous sportsmen, but none have
yet been bagged.

The fish in Szechuan are small, scarce, and consequently
dear. The rapid sand-laden currents and rocky beds of the
rivers are unfavourable to their growth, and in this respect,
as in many others, the Upper Yang-tse presents a marked
contrast to the Lower River. The distinction is sharply
drawn at the foot of the Ichang Gorge. While in the Upper
River no large fish are known to exist, here in the Ichang
reach, shoals of porpoises may be daily seen disporting
themselves in the clear water, which is the characteristic of
the rainless winter months ; immense sturgeon are occasion-
ally caught, and, as is well known, the river swarms with
fish of every description, up to saurians even; small alli-
gators (Alligator sinensis) infest the lower reaches and the
adjoining creeks, being occasionally caught in the Wang-pu
off the Shanghai settlement.

As for the cereals and economical productions of
Szechuan, are they not described at length in the
voluminous reports from our consular residents, buried
in those little-read, but most valuable productions, the
Blue-books? Suffice it to say that nearly every food-crop,
including sugar and not excepting opium, flourishes in
Szechuan, besides an inexhaustible supply of drugs, huge
junk-loads of which are despatched from Chung-king
throughout the season, to enrich the drug stores and
destroy the stomachs of their customers, the dyspeptic,
well-to-do classes. From the millet-straw is plaited the
finest straw braid in the world. Tobacco of excellent

268 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

flavour, though strong, is grown everywhere; it is rolled
up like cigars and smoked in pipes, every smoker carrying
the wrapper and fillings in his pouch. With the exception
of cotton, everything that grows in Eastern China grows
better in Szechuan : its mountains may be regarded as the
easternmost prolongation of the Himalayas, and certainly
its tea partakes very decidedly of the Assam character.

Szechuan possesses an area almost exactly equivalent to
that of France; an even superior climate; a far larger
population, equally industrious and thrifty; a land delight-
fully accidentée, and cultivatable to its highest slopes. Many
volumes might be written on the productions of this splendid
province, but the exigencies of space have compelled me to
limit myself to this rapid sketch.

The mineral wealth of the country is as varied as it is
extensive. The whole copper supply of the empire has to
run the gauntlet of the Yang-tse rapids. Discouraged though
they be by the officials, we yet find iron-mines worked on a
small scale, at intervals along the river’s course between
Wu-shan and Wan-hsien, a distance ofa hundred miles. The
iron is brought down in the minute bars affected by the native
trade, by numerous small affluents on the left bank at and
between these two places. The sandstones of Szechuan are
largely impregnated with iron, the washings from which give
the red colour to the summer floods in the Hankow plain.
These floods, which reach their culminating point each year
on or about August 1, seem clearly attributable to the
monsoon rains, and not mainly, as it is often stated, to the
melting of the Thibetan snows. On the other hand, that
mountainous region undoubtedly furnishes the golden sands
of which a fresh layer is deposited each summer, and care-
fully washed for on the sandbanks, laid dry each winter—as
far east as the Tung-ting Lake—and soon the rich matrix

The Loess Country and the Yellow River 269

thus indicated beyond, may prove another California in the
world-supply of the yellow metal.

The outline sketch will show how much has still to be
observed in this wide region. China, though partially
ransacked by many explorers, is still but little appreciated by
scientific writers in Europe, as is evident from the way its
teachings are ignored in the common generalizations of
science. It was left for Richthofen to show, by his examina-
tion of the great sess country of the north-west, the possi-
bility of cerial influences modifying the earth’s surface in a
way that was hitherto thought to be only possibe to water.
Another instructive field of study is opened by the recurring
droughts with which the province of Shansi, once the granary
of the empire, in now afflicted. The change that is going
on before our eyes in the Yellow River, second only in size
and importance to the Yang-tse itself, is another problem
which upsets many of our preconceived notions in hydro-

graphy. Here we have a vast river, historically of far
greater interest than the Yang-tse, flowing along a bed con-
siderably higher than that of the country it should naturally
drain—a river that little more than thirty years ago shifted
its mouth to a point 300 miles northward, and in one sum-
mer deserted the Yellow Sea for the Gulf of Pechili, silting
up the Port of Tientsin, and rapidly converting the gulf into
an agricultural plain. Railway projectors talk glibly of rail-
ways in every direction, and draw their “air” lines with
equal facility across the crumbling loess terraces of the
north and the unbroken series of precipitous mountains
and deep-cut gorges of the west. Yet who knows how far
our Western railways unmodified will answer in such a
country ?

Not alone physical problems, but others, social, political,

and ethical, present themselves upon a closer study of the

270 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

condition and of the past history of this vast land. Such a
study, carried on by unprejudiced minds, will undoubtedly
produce results which would modify many of our commonly
accepted generalizations on these subjects. The belief, for
instance, that order, justice, and a high state of civilization
is the monopoly of Christian nations, ceases to be held upon
a close study of this people on the spot. Yet the good
people of Europe and America are not deterred in their en-
deavours to plant our Western habits and beliefs in a soil
utterly unsuited to them, believing apparently that the up-
rooting of a system so firmly rooted in the past, and so
thoroughly suited to the genius of the present is only a
question of men and money. With eighteen provinces in
China proper, each as large and as populous as a European
kingdom, the field of observation affords room for yet count-
less explorers, not alone in every branch of physical science,
but equally in historical, ethical, ethnographical and linguistic
studies. We have here a nation whose civilization, con-
temporary with that of Nineveh and Babylon, has survived,
by the accident of its isolation, for the edification of the
critical nineteenth century. Let us study it carefully. When
we rightly understand and thoroughly appreciate this in-
teresting survival from antiquity, may we not possibly gain
from it some hints towards the solution of many of the grave
ethical problems now confronting us in the West? This
civilization, totally independent, both in its origin and in its
development, must have lessons to teach us, no less than
our civilization has for the Chinese. What will be the
ultimate result of the intermingling of the two we cannot yet
tell. Hitherto the Chinese seem anxious only to profit by
our superior attainments in the arts of war, the object, if not
the result of which, is to keep nations apart. Let us hope
that the end will be to bring them together, and that the day

A Classical Maxim 271

is not far distant when, in the expressive words of the
Chinese classic—

“ Above is fulfilled the decree of heaven, and below
the laws of earth, and in the midst the harmony of man
joins in.”

Compare Shakespeare—

“Right and Wrong,
Between whose jarring discord Justice reigns.”

272 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

CHAPTER XIII.
THE NEW “GLORIOUS” RAPID.

The great landslide—Earthquake phenomena—Steps taken to modify
the rapid—Need of Admiralty survey.

The New Rapid above Yun-yang.—tThis, the latest freak of
the Great River, is one of the most remarkable natural
phenomena that I have ever had occasion to investigate.
In appearance like the effect of a great earthquake, the
phenomenon is really due solely to the action of water.
When I first visited the spot, two months after the occurrence,
the lines of disturbance were still as fresh as on the day they
were formed, and I had a fine opportunity of examining the
hills and clefts as nature had left them. On a subsequent
visit, a year later, the industrious agriculturists were hard at
work levelling the land, rebuilding their farms, and generally
obliterating the early landmarks. Still, even then the traces
of the great landslide were distinctly visible, especially in
the sundering of the roads traversing the displaced land,
which were all broken short off where they touched the
chasm formed between the landslip and the unmoved
ground, the sundered portions still running in their original
directions, but some hundred yards lower down the valley.

Destruction by Rains 273

In the year 1896, during the months of August and
September, rain fell continuously day and night, and created
widespread damage throughout the province. The harvest
of rice had been a bountiful one, but the crop was largely
destroyed by mildew, and a disastrous famine throughout
Szechuan and in Western Hu-peh resulted. On the mountain
slopes in this latter district, as well as in Eastern Szechuan,
hundreds of square miles of arable land were washed bodily
down off the steeper slopes, leaving nothing but bare rock :
this, added to the fact that much of the best land in Western
China is given up to the beneficent and noxious poppy, and
so abstracted from cereals, led to a repetition of the famine
in the following year ; indeed, owing to the absence of easy
inter-communication, there is now rarely a season in which
some district of the rich province of Szechuan is not a
victim to famine with its attendant loss of life, pestilence, and
riots. This “glorious” rapid is situated in the district of
Yun-yang, in Szechuan, and about thirty miles west of the city
of that name, described in page 98. The name of the
spot is Lung ching Wan, or Dragon’s Ford Bay; the new
landslip, the cause of the rapid, is on the left or north bank
of the river, in longitude 109° 16’ east, and latitude 30° 54'
north. Mr. Consul Bourne, from whose description in the
Geographical Magazine, August, 1897, I take the above
figures, says of it—

“The current in the middle is very fast, and on either bank
huge waves are thrown up by the water dashing against the
rocks below. As our eyes fell upon it for the first time, a large
Szechuan junk, coming down stream, struck a rock in the trough
of the waves and was a wreck in three minutes. . . . A hundred
junks and a thousand lives have been already (December, 1896)
lost, we are told. . . . About five hundred junks were lying at

ob

274 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

the rapid when we passed, the cargo on which may be roughly
valued at £800,000.”

The landslip took place on the nights of the 28th and 29th
of September, 1896. The river valley is here three to four
miles wide, and is bounded by precipitous mountains
rising to about twelve hundred feet; between these and
the present river-bed lie undulating foot-hills, formed in
ancient times from the detritus of the cliffs behind; these
rise to a height of three to four hundred feet, and are a
pleasing feature in the foreground as one travels up the
Great River; the land is very fertile, and is covered with
farmhouses, and villages nestled in woods of walnut and fruit-
trees, interspersed with bamboo groves, while vari-coloured
crops cover the slopes and the wide-spreading banian adorns
the summits, The river bottom is composed of a hard grey
sandstone in which the river has scooped out a gigantic ditch
which forms the channel of the stream at low water. At the
time of high water, during the summer floods, this ditch is
obliterated ; its rock walls, now rising sixty feet above the
water, are all submerged in twenty or thirty feet of water,
and the width and volume of the river are increased tenfold.
It was over this rock-edge that the slide of foot-hills which
broke bodily away from the vertical cliffs of its parent
mountain, poured its mass of detritus, comprising large
angular fragments of hard sandstone rock, with intervening
stiff clay, into the bay which formerly occupied the spot,
building up a lofty projecting spit which suddenly narrowed
the river from about four hundred to one hundred and
fifty yards; in one night converting a tranquil reach into
a furious rapid, with a fall of ten feet in the distance
of one hundred yards. A reef of now (February) half-

A Water Earthquake 275

submerged rocks extends diagonally across the channel from
the right bank, two-thirds of the way towards the newly
formed point, greatly adding to the danger and the fury of
the rapid.

The area of land set in motion is about half a mile in
frontage by one mile in depth: a chasm filled with enor-
mous rock fragments separates the firm land at the rear
from the land that has slipped forward. The cause of
the slide appears to have been the washing out of the
earth beneath this hill of detritus at a point beneath
where it rested upon impermeable rock. Thus under-
mined, a subsidence took place, and the whole mass then
slid bodily forward in the direction of the river: arrived
at the solid bank, the land seems to have been forced
upward by the pressure from behind, as we see by the
position of the displaced farmhouses, and notably a stone
oil-mill, the walls of which now stand inclined inland at
an angle of thirty to forty degrees. The slide occurred
in the night of the twenty-third day of the eighth moon;
the occupants of the various farms scattered over the sur-
face were warned by ominous rumblings and crackings the
day before, and so had time to clear out: not so the inhabi-
tants of a valley just above, through which, on the same
south bank, flows an affluent of the Yang-tse called the Siao
Ho. Here a navigable river was entirely dammed across,
and the navigation now goes no farther than the foot of the
landslide ; it is here arrested by a wall two hundred feet
high, over which the river descends in a grand waterfall
from the lake that has formed behind. Sixty souls, the
population of a farmhouse on the bank, lie buried in the
débris. But although the landslip produced no fatal injury
on land, it was otherwise on the water: several junks,

276 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

ignorant of the existence of the rapid, rowing down stream,
were caught in it before they had time to make any prepara-
tions to descend, and so were swamped unexpectedly, with
the total loss of their crews : now an inscription on the cliff
a mile above the rapid warns descending junks that “a new
vicious rapid has sprung up.” At the time of my first visit, in
1897, the mandarin in charge of the rapid informed me that
over one thousand liyes had been lost; I myself saw a small
boat engulfed and one large salt-junk with sixty rowers
caught in the whirlpool below. This occurred at noon as
she was descending the rapid, of course lightened of her
cargo; and it was just sunset when I saw her at last get free.
There was no danger as long as daylight lasted, with an
empty junk, high out of water and well manned ; but it was
an extraordinary sight to watch how the “Dragon in the
Rapid” baffled the persistent efforts of the crew to escape
from the vicious circle that held them in its watery grip.
Safety les in descending the rapid in the centre, where the
compression has arched the water and piled it up high
above the eddies on each side; to hit this centre a
descending junk has to steer between a gap in the reef
over which the water now falls before it forms the rapid.
This reef was harmless originally, as the main body of the
river lay to the north of it; now the new landslide has
pushed up to this reef, and over and through it the whole
river now passes.

During the first winter after the formation of the rapid in
the month of February, when the water is at its lowest,
the Chinese attempted to improve the channel by digging
away the point. The salt guild of Lu-chow, whose junks
had been the greatest sufferers, gained permission from the
Szechuan Viceroy to do what they could with manual labour

A Human Ant-hive 397

only, and some two thousand workmen were employed in
breaking up the rock masses into manageable pieces, and in
then transporting the broken-up material into the whirlpool
bay below. This method, slow and sure, suited the Chinese;
but the point was not appreciably reduced before the spring
rise in the river arrested the work. It was an interesting
sight to see the busy ant-hive swarming on the point, the
masons in red and navvies in yellow turbans. These man-
aged to get through a good deal of work, although without
dynamite they were unable to clear away the rock below
the water level. A triangle, or to speak more accurately, a
conic section, measuring roughly 450 by 150 by 50 feet,
was removed, adding fifty yards to the width of the channel
when the river should have overflowed the excavation.
Three thousand pounds was the sum allotted to the work,
which was being expended at the rate of thirty pounds per
diem in wages. The Viceroy’s alleged reason for pro-
hibiting the use of dynamite was, that in Yun-yang resides
the Féng-shui, or Guardian Angel of Chéng-tu, the provincial
capital, and that an explosion here would destroy his
ya-men there. Some years ago a careless boatman lit a fire
on a rock in mid-river above Wan-hien: this rock is the
Féng-shui of Pao-ning-fu in north-east Szechuan; the result
was the destruction of the city of Pao-ning by fire that very
same night.

When, in the spring of this year, we passed up in the
“ Leechuen,” we found no less than 327 junks laid up in the
reach below the rapid, either waiting their turn to ascend, or
transhipping their cargo to fresh junks above. All boats
that venture to pass the rapid have to strip even to their fit-
tings, so as to make them as light as possible ;—that is until
the summer rise obliterates the fall. Coming from Yun-yang

278 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

city, and rounding the point which opens up this wide reach,
we could have imagined ourselves entering some wide fiord
with a picturesque landlocked harbour crowded with traffic.
Gangs of heavily laden coolies were groaning under bales of
yarn and Manchester goods as they laboured along, up and
down the steep improvised paths over the rocks on either
shore, The rapid was at its fiercest, and the huge breakers
below the smooth tongue reminded-one forcibly of the rapids
of the Niagara river below the falls. But now, at last, serious
efforts were being made to effect a permanent cure in this
new obstruction. During the preceding summer, the Imperial
Maritime Customs had obtained the concurrence of the two
Viceroys concerned—-Hu-peh and Szechuan—to the employ-
ment of dynamite, and we were delighted to find a deputation,
lent by Sir Robert Hart from the lighthouse service, hard at
work. ‘This deputation consisted of Messrs. Tyler, Gray
Donald, and Myers, with some two thousand coolies working
under their directions. In the economical way in which
public works are carried out in impoverished China, these
gentlemen had a very limited sum placed at their disposal,
were short of dynamite and electric material, and supplied
only with inferior local made gunpowder. Yet much had been
already accomplished ; great excavations had been made in
the point which grows higher and higher, and wider, as the
work advances. Much of the mid-reef had been removed,
and with the débris from the cutting away of the right
bank, a road was being built up for trackers under the
cliff that lines the south shore; but their job is far from
finished.

Mr. Tyler, who had necessarily made a prolonged stay
on the spot, kindly furnished me with the following figures,
which are most valuable in enabling the reader to form an

Statistics of the New Rapid 279

accurate conception of the size of the river and the dimen-
sions of the new obstruction to its flow :—

Volume of water passing the rapid in

4 i 111,000 cubic feet per second.
winter, at time of lowest water feel : E

Volume in summer, estimated at sie 1,110,000 9 ”
Winter level section... tae ses 25,366 square feet.
Summer level section ... ate sae 419,093 9

Width at rapid ... tes wee was 500 feet.

Width at section aa i 959 »

Summer rise in water level (1897,
often more)
Agricultural land displaced by landslide 80 acres.

140 ,,

, fat hit] ? qi

Height of ‘‘ foot-hill” displaced saad 450 feet.
river

Mean velocity three feet below surface 5°48 knots.

Height of fall at head of rapid ok 6% feet.

The work of cutting away the cliff ceased in April, leaving
two million cubic yards of rock and earth to be still removed,
before the rapid can be rendered positively safe for winter
traffic: so far (May, 1898) only 80,000 cubic yards have
been removed, so that the bulk of the work has still to be
done, and to do it will occupy the engineers further two or
three winters. As the rapid now is, so our friends told us,
scarcely a day passes that a junk is not swamped with loss
of life. Men falling into the water are sucked under instantly
—snapped up, the Chinese say, by the Dragon who formed
the rapid. The loss to trade may be estimated as a new
tax of five per cent. upon all cargoes imported into Szechuan,
half of this amount being loss in interest by the delay which
merchants have to suffer. Steam would make light of the
difficulties which so impede the junks in the high-water
season. Being tracked from the shore, they are unable
to keep clear of the rocks which infest the inshore channels.
A steamer would then keep clear of the shore and steam

380 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

on in deep water; she would find the rapids smoothed over
and practically non-existent. The main junk traffic is in
winter, when the rapids are at their worst; but, when towing
in the intervening reaches, is easier, and the prevailing
north-east monsoon provides’a steady up-river breeze. The
gorges are almost impassable to junks in summer, owing to
the absence of towing-paths past the overhanging precipices,
and the prevalence of calms. Ina light passenger junk last
summer, some friends of ours were just two months in
covering the five hundred miles from Ichang to Chung-king.
What with the loss in time, the often total loss of goods,
the water damage which scarce a single junk escapes, the
risk to life and limb, the loss in interest and the absence of
insurance, the wonder is, not that the trade is no greater,
but that it exists at all. A well-managed line of steamers
on this grand but dangerous river will be as great a boon
to the Chinese as it is a bugbear to the officials, with whose
“squeezes” it threatens to interfere.

A large heterogeneous crowd is now collected round the
banks of the New Rapid, engaged in the portage round the
falls, and in road-making, etc. There must be at least ten
thousand people squatting in the villages of wooden shanties
and straw huts, which have been rapidly run up, and will all
have to be removed as the river rises, and again replaced in
winter. The movement is something extraordinary ; crowds
of coolies, soldiers, sailors, innkeepers, passengers, carrying
their valuables round the rapid and struggling under their
burdens, remind one of a fair and the traffic at a big railway-
station combined. To keep all this population in order,
to settle disputes, arrest thieves and order the traffic, which
Chinese officials do in a rough-and-ready but practical way,
a Deputy. Magistrate has been appointed from Yun-yang; he

Interrogating the Dragon 281

lives in a temporary ya-men with walls of matting, and has
been thrice burnt out. Little rain falls in winter, and once a
hut catches fire the whole place goes. He was a young man,
and anxious to learn; he gave me an excellent dinner, and
told me some of his experiences and troubles. One dispute,
on arrival was, To whom did the land belong upon which
the village stands ;—to the man who originally owned the
site, or to the man whose fields were now superimposed on
the first by the landslide? In true Solomonic fashion he
solved the quarrel by dividing the land between the two
litigants. The Chinese further say that the mandarin also
interrogated the Dragon as to why he had wrought this evil.
The reply was, “I do my Dragon business, you do your
mandarin business.”

Twenty-two years have elapsed since, by the Chefoo
Convention negotiated between Sir Thomas Wade and Li
Hung Chang, the port of Chung-king was nominally opened
to British trade. Throughout that period constant sug-
gestions have been made that the British Admiralty should
survey the river. To a China resident it seems a simple
thing to detach, say, a torpedo-catcher from the large
squadron in China waters, and send her to do the work.
It would be an instructive expedition to officers lying
idle in Hong-kong, and a pleasant outing for the men
employed; the winter climate of Mid-China is cool and
rainless. Admirals interviewed and impressed with the
boon such survey will be to would-be navigators, reply that
the order must come ‘from the Foreign Office. Thus the
Foreign Office is the obstacle, and will apparently remain
so until this department of our Government is reorganized,
and an influential official appointed who shall give con-
tinuous attention to Far Eastern affairs. It goes without

282 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

saying that all work done on the Upper Yang-tse goes
towards spreading our influence in that region—a region
which we now profess to regard as our special “sphere of
influence.” How long will it remain our sphere, if no steps
are taken, either by our Government or by British capitalists,
to survey and develop its resources, warn off intruders, and
make the occupation really effective? We have precedents
in the Russian occupation of Manchuria, in the German
occupation of Shantung, and in the French expeditions to
Yiinnan. There is thus no time to be lost if our sphere
of influence is ever to be more than “ You ming wu sze”—
a name without a reality.

at Mouth of

s City,” on Cliff

Pavilion in Garden of ‘‘ White Emperor

[To face p. 282.

Bellows Gorge.

28s.)

CHAPTER XIV.
FIRST ASCENT BY STEAM.

Feasibility of steam navigation in Szechuan—Account of the first ascent
of the Yang-tse rapids by steam in 1898—Remarks.

In posing the question of running steamers to Chung-king,
I wrote in 1887, in the original edition of this book, words
which are equally applicable to the position of affairs to-
day :—

“The navigability of the Upper Yang-tse by steam has often
“been called in question, and assuredly any one who has care-
“fully perused the preceding journal will agree that it is no easy
“matter. At the same time I am decidedly of opinion that, if
“the necessary conditions are fulfilled, there is no insuperable
‘difficulty in the way. These conditions are: A powerful
“steamer, easily handled, and of a draught of water not exceed-
“ing that of the present junks. In looking myself into the
“matter, I found that nearly all the junk losses occur in the
“upward voyage; scraping along the rocky shore, with often
“insufficient towing power, they are unable to contend with the
“powerful eddies, and are thrown against the rocks, when holes
“are quickly knocked into their weak, untimbered sides. A
“steamer, keeping clear of the shore, would not be exposed to
“these risks, and where necessary she could feel her way up as

284 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

“slowly as she liked. Her danger would be in coming down.
“Now, if we look at the junks on the downward voyage, we
“find that, with only just sufficient power on board to give them
“steerage way, they have no difficulty in keeping in the middle
“of the channel, where there is at all seasons plenty of water
“for light-draft vessels, as well as plenty of room ; consequently
“a steamer of the same draft, following in the wake of the junks,
“can hardly fail to go right, and as time went on, the captain of
‘‘a steamer would learn the river, and proceed with greater con-
“fidence. Competent pilots take the junks down each dangerous
“rapid ; they have landmarks by which they know the depth of
“the water on every dangerous rock, as the level of the water
“varies from day to day, and the cumbersome junks are steered
“down by them in perfect safety. Most of the accidents coming
“down stream occur to the small boats, whose masters think
“they can safely dispense with a local pilot. Of course, a
“steamer, to succeed, must be specially constructed for the
“work ; and to the fact that no such steamer has as yet been
“procurable in Chinese and Japanese waters must be attributed
“the neglect to make the experiment, conditionally sanctioned
“in the Convention of Chefoo. This Convention, made by Sir
“Thomas Wade with Li Hung Chang, as long ago as 1876,
“stipulates that arrangements for the opening of the port of
“ Chung-king to foreign trade may be taken into consideration,
“as soon as steamers have succeeded in ascending the river so
“far. The wording of the Convention is involved enough to
“satisfy the professional pride of the most thorough-going
*‘diplomatist, containing as it does the seeds of a quarrel ready
“to hand, for either of the high contracting parties to take up
“at anytime. The clause affecting the Upper River is a notable
“instance of not allowing a boy to enter the water until he has
“learnt to swim. Doubtless, when a suitable steamer is pre-
“pared to ascend, pressure will be brought to bear on the
“ Chinese to gain the necessary permission to try the experiment ;
“but there can be little doubt but that the Peking authorities
“will shelter themselves behind the ambiguous clauses of the
“Treaty as long as they can, so as to avoid giving their
“ consent.”

Opposition to Steam 285

It was not long after penning these words that I en-
deavoured to back my views and translate them into action.
I succeeded in getting a few well-wishers to subscribe the
necessary capital to build an experimental steamer. The
Kuling, a stern-wheeler of about five hundred tons burthen,
was built on the Clyde, put together in Shanghai, and taken
to Ichang in 1889 with the view of ascending to Chung-
king, and so getting the place opened to foreign trade as a
treaty port; but I reckoned without my host in the shape of
the British Government and their then representative in
China, Sir John Walsham. These refused to coerce the
Chinese Government in any way, and so the Kwling was
eventually sold and the scheme abandoned. The prime
mover in the opposition was the then Viceroy of Szechuan,
backed by his father-in-law, Li Hung Chang, whom the
Japanese war had then not yet unmasked. The Chinese
palmed off the most frivolous objections on good Sir John,
whose home instructions apparently compelled him to let
the Chinese interpret the Chefoo Convention in their own
way, and so postpone the opening of Chung-king sine die.
Nothing could be more fatuous, in the opinion of British
residents in China, than the conduct of our Government
towards the Chinese since their defeat in 1860. Our
Foreign Office officials seem to be untaught by history, and
so seldom profit by past experience in their dealings with
China. It is interesting to read how, more than a century
and a half ago, Commodore Anson, in his famous voyage
round the world with one ship, the Centurion, succeeded by
firmness in gaining his point with the Chinese of his day.
The Canton Viceroy put him off by endless delays and
excuses, Anson wanting only to refit and revictual. At
last Anson went up alone to Canton city, and insisted upon

286 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

seeing the Viceroy himself, telling the Chinese that, if he
did not return in safety, his ship had orders to come up and
look for him, Needless to say that he got all he wanted
without firing a shot.

How applicable are the words in the following extracts
from “ Anson’s Voyage round the World” (London, 1748)
to the situation to-day !

“And yet this populous, this rich and extensive country, so
pompously celebrated for its refined wisdom and policy, was
conquered about an age since by a handful of Tartars; and
even now by the cowardice of its inhabitants and the want of
proper military regulations, it continues exposed, not only to
the attempts of any potent state, but to the ravages of every
petty invader” (p.’414).

And how entreaties are of no avail, but threats omnipotent !

“Mr. Anson told him the next day that if he longer refused
to grant the permit (to revictual at Canton) he would man and
arm his own boats to carry him thither, asking the Hoppo at
the same time, who he imagined would dare to oppose him. The
threat immediately brought about what his entreaties had
laboured for in vain” (p. 365).

“That if by the delay of supplying him with provisions, his
men should be reduced to the necessity of turning cannibals
and preying upon their own species, it was easy to be foreseen
that they would prefer the plump well-fed Chinese to their own
emaciated shipmates ” (p. 362).

The matter of the Upper Yang-tse navigation thus
remained in abeyance until the successful Japanese war of
1895 overthtew the barriers of Chinese conservatism by
main force. At the conclusion of the war the Japanese
were able to stipulate for the formal opening of Chung-
king to steamers, and the clause was embodied in the Treaty
of Simonoseki. This clause must have been a bitter pill

The Building of the Steamer 287

for Li Hung Chang to swallow, he being the plenipotentiary
who signed the treaty on behalf of the Chinese Government.
By this treaty, under the favoured nation clause, the Upper
Yang-tse became open to the world, and I consequently
applied to our minister in Peking to ask if he would support
me in the event of my again having a steamer built for the
purpose. Sir Claude Macdonald, our present minister, a
man of action, unlike the kindly gentlemen who preceded
him in sleepy Peking, encouraged me by all means to
proceed, and promised energetic support. I thus ordered a
twin-screw steamer to be built in Shanghai, fifty-five feet long
and ten feet beam, with which to experiment in the rapids.
The boat was built, with a teak hull, by the Shanghai
Engineering Company, steamed nine knots, and proved her-
self an excellent little vessel for the work. I should have
much preferred a larger and more powerful vessel ; but, as
the risk was all my own this time, and insurance unobtain-
able, I had to cut my coat according to my cloth. I set out
from Shanghai on the 15th of January, 1898, and, including
delays at the various treaty ports on the way, spent three
weeks in ascending the 970 miles to Ichang, the then limit
of steam navigation on the river. Arrived at Ichang, the
Chinese Governor of the port sent officers on board, and also
to the Consul there, Mr. Holland, to propose the discussion
of regulations for preventing collisions, etc., and so delay our
departure. Having spent six months, a whole winter, over
futile discussions ten years before, we refused to reopen
the question, Mr. Holland wisely declining even to see the
“ deputy ” who called upon him; he simply wrote to the
Governor that the steamer would start on the 15th of
February, with or without his permission, but that the vessel
would delay a week, so as to give him time to advise his

288 Through the Vang-tse Gorges

brother officials up river of our intended voyage, which he
declared to be necessary. Hereupon the opposition vanished
like magic: it was the old story of Chinese cobwebs dis-
persed by a show of firmness,

So, on the 15th of February we set out upon the first steam
voyage to Chung-king, an ascent of 500 feet in 500 miles,
broken, so the Chinese “Gazetteer” states, into thirteen big
rapids and seventy-two minor ones. The Governor had sent
as an escort a gunboat and a lifeboat; these we had to take
in tow, in addition to our own tender carrying six tons of spare
coal, and a spare crew of ten men to help on occasion, in case
the local trackers at the big rapids should refuse their aid. This
was no imaginary danger, for my own crew of men from the
coast, sailors and engineers, had all tried to desert on several
occasions, as stories of the danger ahead were impressed
upon them. They had signed on for six months to me as
registered captain, yet I had to use a mixture of force and
persuasion to keep them to their posts. At length, at noon,
the start was made, the whole foreign community of Ichang
accompanying us a few miles up the river, and giving us a
last cheer as they shoved off in their boat which we had
towed up. We had now in tow three vessels—our own tender,
a flat-bottomed sailing barge nearly as big as ourselves; the
Chinese gunboat of similar build, with a small cannon in the
bows, and a smart crew of twelve Hu-Nan “braves ;” and
the lifeboat manned by six uniformed sailors. These vessels
are stationed all along the dangerous Upper River, are well
disciplined, and effectual in keeping down piracy and in
saving life and property. We ran fast through the slack
water of the Ichang Gorge, and seeing all clear, I handed
over the helm for an interval to the native pilot and
went below. He immediately ran into a ferry-boat full of

“We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.”
COLERIDGE'S Ancient Alariner,
(Zo face p. 288.

fight with the Rapids 289

passengers, and knocked the helmsman overboard. The man
was fortunately rescued unhurt, and so a great danger to our
progress averted, while I was warned not to leave the deck
again while under way. We moored for the night, tying up
to the bank at the entrance of the Yao-tsa-ho, the river of
piled rocks, having made thirty miles in six hours. On the
following day we negotiated with great ease the little races
that run round the jutting-out points of this stretch of river,
so difficult to junks to tow past for want of points of vantage
for the trackers, and affording most precarious foothold.
We got through the fierce Otter Rapid—a rapid with breaking
waves, but with wide channels of deep water between the
reefs—with much trouble and after repeated attempts, on one
occasion swept bodily astern and broadside on to a high
reef—which we just cleared by hastily changing our course
and heading straight down river. At last we got through,
and then followed up a long smooth reach with swift current,
crossing and recrossing to pick out the easiest water, until
we came to the Kung ling Rapid. This rapid has narrow
winding channels amongst the rocks scattered across the
river, so we tied up below it and engaged a T’an sze, or
“rapid expert,” to pilot us through. When the old man
came on board and realized it was a steamer, which would
go through without being towed, he tried to bolt and hide
himself, and our attendant officials on the gunboat had to
use much “persuasion” to induce him to stay. Eventually,
he took up his position on the platform I had built for the
bow-sweep projecting over the bows, and directed the
steeringby his arms with the greatest af/omd and certainty ;
the noise of the rapids renders shouting useless. From
here on we steamed through the Niu-kan Gorge, its gigantic

walls threatening to crush us in the fading light, and just
U

290 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

succeeded in tying up below the famous Shin tan, or “ New
Rapid,” by dark, having steamed forty miles, including two
rapids, in ten hours.

The Great Rapid of the Shin tan is at this season an actual
waterfall, although when the water rises in May it disappears
altogether ; and we careered about in the big waves below
until we crossed the river and tied up to the right shore
immediately beneath the fall. Two tow-lines were attached,
and with one hundred coolies straining at the lines, aided by
our own steam, we were up in a few minutes, After waiting
along time in the deep, still water above the fall for our
three consorts to be hauled up, we took on our tows again,
and steamed through the Ping-shu Gorge with majestic ease ;
but in the more open valley at its head we encountered a
fierce race over a boulder flat, in which the propellers seemed
to get no grip, and we crawled along, making about one
mile an hour until, at dusk, we tied up under a steep sand-
bank on the left shore, having advanced only ten miles in as
many hours.

On the following morning we entered one of the most con-
fused and troublesome reaches of the river—that from the
upper end of the Ping-shu Gorge, to past the walled city of
Kwei-chow. Here a series of parallel reefs run across the
river at right angles to its course. These reefs jut out from
either shore a distance of about a hundred yards, in huge
hard limestone masses rising about forty feet above the level
of the water. These reefs appear to have been cut through
by the river, but they still extend under water across its bed,
and cause awkward cross currents and eddies which tried
the power of our small steamer to the utmost; we had con-
stantly to cross and recross the wide river, taking advantage
of the eddies, and avoiding the rocks as best we could.

Fouling the Screws 291

On one reef a large junk was sunk with her stern just
visible: her crew had tied her to the shore with long
bamboo hawsers, leaving only a small passage between her
and the rocks, through which we had to steam, meeting the
full force of the current in a narrow winding channel. We
ultimately moored in a swift current opposite Kwei-chow,
having taken nearly six hours to advance six miles. We had
dropped our tows, who, fortunately, aided by a strong up-river
breeze, did not detain us long. But in taking them on again
for the smooth stretch of swift water from Kwei-chow to the
foot of the Yeh-tan (rapid) a serious accident happened.
The bamboo hawser of the gunboat became entangled in
one of our propellers, and was twisted round it so firmly
that we had to tie up to the shore again, and were delayed
some hours before one of our willing crew dived down and
hacked it clear with a sharp hatchet. At four in the after-
noon we moored a mile below the Yeh-tan, where a heavy
snowstorm compelled us to tie up for the night. I had
much trouble all the way with these accompanying gun-
boats; but I did not like to offend them, this being the first
steamer to invade their beats, otherwise many a time I
should have cast them adrift. The life-boat, on the other
hand, proved itself of the greatest use, having a very smart
and well-disciplined crew, always ready to help us in any
difficulty. At the Yeh-tan, which is a clean rapid, due to
the narrowing of the river by a huge cone of dejection from
a now dry affluent on the left bank, we had again to be
towed. We lost nearly a whole day waiting our turn until
the junks ahead of us had gone up and left us a clear way,
‘for we failed in our attempt to steam round and get ahead
of them, such was the force of the current. From above
the Yeh-tan, past the city of Pa-tung, where great crowds of

292 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

blue-coated people, including the magistrate and his suite,
watched us steam by in silent astonishment, we steamed on
until, in the evening of the following day, we came upon the
rock-strewn rapids of the Niu-kou (ox head) and the Héng
liang (transverse ridge). We crept through these, running
up in the eddies; then meeting the down current, which
swept us back, we crossed rapidly to the opposite shore ;
then on again in the next eddy, until we at last got safely
through. It was here, in the Héng-liang-tze, that we saw
two large junks capsized: one had been towed ashore; one
was floating on her side in the eddy as we passed up. Both
these junks had been tracking up in the eddy, when, upon
rounding the point and meeting the down current, they had
suddenly taken a sheer and gone over before there had been
time for the trackers to release the tow-lines. Warned by
their disaster we attempted, by careful steering, to bring our
stem head on to the current in good time; but, as it was, we
rolled gunnel under, and, had we been tracked, must have
infallibly capsized. Above these picturesque, but from the
navigator’s point of view nasty, places, we entered the great
gorge of Wu-shan, Wu-shan-ta-hsia ; and here we thoroughly
enjoyed the triumph of steam, traversing its twenty miles,
with our heavy tows, in about five hours. This long gorge
is the crux of junk navigation, unless when a fair wind blows,
as the cliff walls defy tracking, and it is impossible to row
against the current: at its upper end is the city of Wu-shan,
where we moored for the night. The next day saw us
through the rapids of the “ Kitten” and “ Dismount from
your horse,” until at dusk we- moored at the foot of the
rapid which, at this season, flows over from the reservoir of
the Bellows Gorge with considerable violence. It was here
that, while steering inshore amidst the rocks, to avoid the

Speed of the Rapids 293

current, we were swept back and touched a rock with our
starboard propeller, badly bending two of the blades: these
being made of bronze we, later on, at Chung-king, succeeded
in hammering back into shape; but our speed for the re-
mainder of our voyage was reduced by this accident to
about six knots. Fortunately half our journey, counting by
rapids, was over when, on the following morning, we tied
up safely under the walls of the ancient city of Kwei-
chow-fu.

We delayed two days at Kwei-chow-fu to give our Ningpo
engineers a rest, and time to overhaul the engines, which had
had a severe strain put upon them during the past week
while keeping up full steam, 150 lbs., continuously. Crowds
lined the shore where we lay—a great contrast in their quiet
behaviour to.the rude shouting and mud-throwing we had so
often had to put up with at this place while travelling in
native boats. All wanted to come on board, but we were
compelled to restrict our visitors to those who presented
cards ; these we freely admitted, and our little saloon was
at times inconveniently crowded.

From Kwei-chow-fu to the ‘‘ Miao chi-tse,” or “ Temple
stairs,” we toiled, at our unfortunately reduced speed,
through a succession of minor rapids, at the worst of which
we had to cast off our tows and wait above for them to track
themselves up, thus making in all only about eighteen miles
in seven hours. For we moored at the Miao chi-tse early
in the afternoon, the string of junks waiting to ascend show-
ing that we should have to wait till the morning. It is
remarkable how the rapids vary: this rapid was now running
with greater force than the fierce Yeh-tan, a comparatively
narrow slope of smooth water with big breaking waves below.
We went up next morning with two tow-lines and 150

294 Through the YVang-tse Gorges

trackers. Owing to the unusual fact of the channel for
junks towing up being in the middle of the river, here
narrowed to about four hundred yards, I had a good oppor-
tunity of making a fair trial of the actual speed of the current.
I had with me a Walker’s patent log, which registers on the
log itself, and not on the taffrail. In half an hour, during
which we advanced about a quarter of a mile, it registered
six nautical miles, making the speed of the current nearly
twelve knots for a distance of a quarter of a mile, while the
speed for the half mile lower down was probably seven to
eight knots. From this we passed on to the Tung yang tse,
a nasty looking cataract, but a less really formidable obstacle
than its smooth-looking companion, the Miao chi-tse, past
the city of Yun-yang, and on through a series of smooth
rapids, rounding the innumerable projecting rocky points, to
the foot of the celebrated New Rapid of Yun-yang, the
culminating and most formidable hindrance to navigation
on the whole river.

This rapid, the newest of all, and commonly called the
Hsin t’an, or New Rapid simply, although its official name
is the “ Hing lung t’an,” or “Glorious Rapid” —a euphemism
to conciliate its guardian Dragon,—was formed as recently as
1896 ; so it is well entitled to its designation of new. Being
in a separate province, that of Szechuan, its name does not
clash with the old New Rapid, which is in Hu-peh, and dates
from A.D. 1640. At least, so the Chinese say, but to our
minds the nomenclature is most confusing. At this spot,
up to the night of the 12th September, 1896, the river flowed
in a wide tranquil reach; but on that fatal night, part of the
foot-hills, about half a mile in width, broke loose from the
mountains upon which they leant and advanced into the
river, narrowing the channel at one stroke from about eight

The Dreaded Hsin-lan 295

hundred to less than two hundred yards. The river was
dammed up. A lake-like expanse was immediately formed
above the landslip, the water from which burst into a similar
expanse below in a frightful cataract, reminding one forcibly
of the rapids of the Niagara River below the falls. Below
this rapid we found 320 junks moored along both shores,
some discharging their cargoes for transport to fresh junks
above the rapid, others waiting their turn to ascend. We
steamed up past them in the five-knot current, taking our
place at the head of the line in preparation for our ascent
on the following moming. It was a picturesque scene, the
junks moored in a lake-like expanse surrounded by high
mountains, and now gay with many lanterns, while numerous
sampans plied across the river, ferrying passengers and
supplies to the busy fleet. Next day we steamed up in the
eddy below the falls and engaged a local pilot. Here a long
discussion arose as to whether our little vessel could get up
at all; for, in the channel close in shore, along the left
bank, the only one safe to tow up at this season, there was
said to be barely four feet of water. Our draft was three feet
six inches, and, owing to the high waves, the four feet of
water could not be depended upon throughout. We were
advised to wait a month, until a few inches rise should ensure
our safety. Determined, however, to risk the ascent, we
lightened the boat by landing our coal and stores, and set
out with three hundred men hauling on three main tow-lines
ahead, with shorter lines carried ashore at right angles to the
boat, acting as guys to prevent her taking a sheer, and so
possibly breaking loose into mid-river, where she would in-
evitablyhave been swamped. Our engine staff again shied, but
were ultimately placated by my tying our one lifebuoy round
the body of the “ chief,” a middle-aged man, who controlled

296 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

the two young firemen under him. At the start, one tow-line
snapped off; but we got up successfully, the other two lines
holding well, in twelve anxious minutes. In summer, as the
water rises, the falls disappear, the rapid is changed into a
race, and junks move up and down without serious difficulty.
Arrived in the smooth water above we felt jubilant,
believing that now this dangerous obstacle had been over-
come, our reaching Chung-king was no longer a matter of
doubt. In this we were somewhat premature, as will be
seen later, 3

From the New Rapid to Wan Hien we steamed without
difficulty through the race of the Eight Genii Gorge, having
spent twelve days, including detentions, in covering the 250
miles of this, the first half of our voyage.

From Wan Hien onwards to Chung-king the valley widens
out, the shores are less precipitous, and, although the walls,
as well as the bed of the river, are still composed of rocks
and huge banks of boulders, the current is easier and the
numerous rapids are more manageable. Hence we accom-
plished this second stage of the journey in about half the
time we had spent over the first stage. We got along
better with our tows,—though once again fouling our pro-
peller, owing to the carelessness of the gun-boat crew,—
dropping them at rare intervals, mostly in shallow places
where the clear water raced over a boulder bottom, the
grinding of the boulders below being distinctly audible.
Occasionally half a dozen men from our tender would have
to jump ashore with a line and help us over a tight spot,
often for a few yards only ata time. But for the accident
to our propeller, this would not have been necessary. Then,
again, our pumps got choked with sand, and necessitated
constant stoppages, At times we despaired of ever reaching

Shipwreck 297

Chung-king: we had often to lay up for repairs which our
engine staff declared impossible. Then, our Japan coal
finished, we had to depend on local coal. With this we
could only raise ninety pounds of steam, and so were reduced
to half speed ; we managed to crawl along, however, making
some forty miles daily, without serious accident until one
evening when we struck a rock which all but wrecked the
boat and our hopes together. We were in the Scissors
Gorge, one of the many smaller gorges cut by the river at
right angles through the cross limestone ranges that break
up the sandstone plateau of Szechuan proper. It was dusk,
we seemed to have struck some better coal, and were hurrying
on to find a mooring-place, making about six knots over the
ground in the still deep water of the gorge. Suddenly we
bumped over a rock so sharp that it cut through the inch
teak planking, broke two hardwood frames, and sent the
water spouting up over the saloon floor. The vertical cliffs on
either side precluded our at once beaching the boat: the
only thing was to steam on to the end of the gorge. This we
did, our attempts to stop the leak meanwhile barelysucceeding
in keeping the water from the fires, Fortunately, we soon
spotted a little steep patch of sand in the moonlight, on to
which we ran the boat: the men jumped ashore and quickly
carried the anchor up the bank, and we made fast for the
night. We worked the whole night through, stuffing cotton
and white lead and tallow into the cracks; we nailed
blankets down with planks over all, and by eight the next
morning had stopped the leak sufficiently to be able to get
under way again. Our pilot, who had proved very reliable
so far, declared that this was.a rock newly fallen from the
mountains behind. In any case we should have cleared
it, had we not been hugging the shore so as to avoid the

298 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

current in mid-stream. When we beached the boat, the
man disappeared, fearing punishment for his carelessness.
He had been paid in advance. A more powerful steamer,
keeping well out, would not be exposed to such an accident ;
the water in mid-stream in the gorges is immensely deep, and
no newly fallen rock there could show up anywhere near the
surface ; a larger steamer, too, would be built in water-tight
compartments like the junks, a precaution I had not thought
necessary with our small boat. We stopped at the many
large towns and cities which we passed in this populous region,
and exchanged cards with the local officials, who, from polite-
ness or curiosity, came to visit the boat. Great crowds
surrounded us everywhere, often squeezing each other into
the water in their anxiety to get a good view: we amused
ourselves, at times, startling them with the whistle, when
it was a curious sight to see a thousand hands suddenly
go up to a thousand ears, while many of the more timid ran
away altogether. As I had foretold to our minister ten
years before, we met with no rudeness anywhere, but, on the
contrary, with much intelligent admiration and inquiry.

At the “Coal” Gorge, fifty miles below Chungtking, so-
called from its exposed coal seams into which adits are run
whence an inferior surface coal is extracted, we again filled
our bunkers; but, alas! we could make no headway with this
coal, so we tied up to the shore and sent one of our crew over-
land to order a boat-load of the better coal obtainable in
Chung-king. My Chinese there, with commendable prompti-
tude, sent off a boat in the early morning, which reached us
before noon on the following day: we then steamed on joy-
fully, passed up the difficult “Wild Mule” Rapid, took our tows
through the beautiful “Gong ” Gorge, and, on the evening of
the 8th of March, moored alongside the Imperial Maritime

Reception tn Chung-king 299

Customs station at Tang chia t’6, ten miles below Chung-king,
where we had been requested to wait by the Reception
Committee arranged to welcome our arrival ;—our trouble-
some but interesting voyage at last accomplished.

Early next morning, after we had cleaned ship and got
out our bunting, the Reception Committee, with the greater
portion of the British and American community in Chung-
king, together with Chinese friends, some fifty in all, came
in sight in house-boats covered with flags. These, including
the ensigns of the British, American, and Japanese consuls,
were transferred to the Leechuen, and we steamed on
triumphantly after taking our friends on board. These gave
us a rapturous welcome, our popular American doctor paying
me the highest compliment in his power by assuring me that
my enterprise had made me worthy of being an American,
Upon reaching Chung-king, the Taotai (Governor) sent more
gunboats, all gaily decorated, and at length, under a salute
of cannon !and a deluge of fire-crackers, we moored below
the Chao tien mén, the “ Gate that looks to Heaven,” of the
ancient city of Chung-king. Here an address of welcome
was read and replied to, after which we steamed across to
our permanent berth in the rock-formed harbour of Lung
mén Hao—the lagoon of the Dragon Gate.

Our voyage from Ichang, a distance roughly estimated at
500 miles, had occupied eleven steaming days, or, including
detentions, just three weeks altogether. It was a first ex-
periment, which could not be hurried ; it was, for necessary
reasons, made at a season when the rapids were at their worst,
and it was made with a vessel of insufficient power. Never-
theless my object was achieved, in demonstrating the possi-
bility of navigating the Upper Yang-tse, and in drawing public
attention to its necessity. When we consider that, as things

300 Through the Yang-tse Gorges

now are, three months is an average time for goods to
reach Chung-king from Shanghai, while six months is not
uncommon, we realize what an impetus will be given to the
trade of this rich province, once regular steam communica-
tion is established. ‘That this will not have long to wait is
now certain, and when it does come its promoters will reap
a rich reward. Until some day superseded by a railway
along the gorges, steamers on the river will command the
cream of the immense carrying-trade now painfully served by
fragile junks. The present army of wretched trackers will
gradually be set free for more remunerative work as the
mines are developed and new industries become established.
Then will the pioneer voyage of the little Zeechuen not
have been made in vain.

APPENDIX

ADDRESS OF CONGRATULATION AND WELCOME
PRESENTED TO

ARCHIBALD J. LITTLE, ESQ., F.R.G.S.,

ON THE OCCASION OF HIS ARRIVAL WITH THE FIRST
STEAMER IN THE PORT OF CHUNG-KING.

‘¢Chung-king, 8th March, 1898.

“ ARCHIBALD J. LITTLE, ESQ.
“DEAR SIR,

“We, the undersigned foreigners residing in the
city of Chung-king, desire to offer you our hearty congratulations
on this auspicious occasion, when we have the great gratification
of welcoming your arrival here with the first steam-vessel to
ascend the Upper Yang-tse. ;

“We desire to make this public acknowledgment of your
unflagging perseverance, through many years, and praiseworthy
determination to bring a steamer to this city, in spite of the
obstacles which have been pronounced by some to be insur-
mountable, and we rejoice with you in the present accomplish-
ment of the aim which you have had so long in view.

“We the more heartily do this because, in addition to the
advantages which steam navigation on the Upper Yang-tse may
bring to foreign residents in this great Western port, we believe
eventually lasting benefits will also thereby accrue to the
general native population in these interior provinces.

302 Appendix

‘We should therefore once more offer to yourself and to Mrs.
Little, the sympathetic companion of your present successful
voyage up-river, now so happily accomplished, our most hearty
and united congratulations, with the expression of the hope that
you may live many years to see great development in the steam
navigation of the Upper Yang-tse, which you have always
indefatigably advocated ; while to yourself alone will always
remain the honour of having brought the first steamer into the
port of Chung-king.” *

[Here follow the signatures of
all (about sixty) the foreign
residents in Chung-king.]

This was followed by congratulatory telegrams from the
British Minister, from Consuls and others in different parts of
the Empire, and from the “Ratepayers of Shanghai in Public
Meeting assembled ;” z.e. the Cosmopolitan Parliament of the
Commercial Metropolis of China—the well-known “ Model
Settlement.”

* Extract from the North China Herald, Shanghai, vith April,
1898.

INDEX

ALCcock, Sir Rutherford, 214

American Methodist Mission,
Chung-king, 166, 171, 172

Anson, Commodore, in China
(1748), 285, 286

“Ascent of the Golden Peak”
(pass), 48, 49

BaBER, Mr., 138, 181, 198, 254, 255

‘* Back baskets,”’ used in Fu-chow,
235, 236

Banquet, a Chinese, 142, 143

Barton, Dr. Alfred, x.

Baskets, called Pei tsz, 119; called
Pei-lo, 236

Battlements, built of stone, 240

“Bellows” Gorge, 81-83, 85,
89, 91, 292

Black Dragon Gorge, 232

Blacksmiths, town of, 108

Blakiston, Captain, travels in
China, x., 32, 64, 89, 118,
137, 225, 226, 231

Boat, small, called Shen Potse,
29-31, 215

Boats; on the Kung t’an Hé
River, 126, 127; laden with
drugs from Kansu, 198. See also
Junks

Bourne, Mr. Consul, 273, 274

Brass Gong Gorge, 132, 224, 225

Brine wells: Ta-ling city, 793
Kwei-chow, 85

British consular agents in Western
China, 138

British trade with China, 3, 4,
7-10, 13, 14

Buddhas, of colossal stone, 133

Buddhist procession at Chung-
king, 139

Buddhist temples, near Ichang,
42-44

“Bund” at Hankow, 16, 17

Cangues (wooden collars), 92

Canton guild gardens, Chung-
king, 168

Catholic converts at Chung-king,
160

Cattle at Kao-chia chen market,
118

Cave of the Sage Lao-tse, 159,
160

Caves in Szechuan, 1473 near
Chung-king, 198

Cedar Garden (village), 75, 76

“Census” men, 109

Cereals in Szechuan, 267

304

**Cha” (tea), 186, 220

Chai-jen (‘“Ya-men runners”), 130

Chang, Mr., 17

Chang chung chien, rebellion of,
77

Chang-fei, temple dedicated to,
99, 100

Changkiang (Long River). See
Yang-tse kiang

Chang-sho, city of, 125, 129, 229,
230

Chang-sing-tung Bank, Chung-
king, 161, 162

Chao, manager of Native Bank,
Chung-king, 161, 162

Chefoo Convention of
viii., 135, 138, 281, 284

Chekiang province, population of,
12

Chen, a Cantonese merchant, 210

Cheng-tu-séng, the capital of
Szechuan province, 132, 140,
178

Chéng-tu, plain of, 262

Chia-ling ho, river, 197

Chiang-kow (River’s
village, 32

Chiang-peh Ting, city of, 133

“*Chien-tao” (Scissors Gorge),
129

Chi-fang (silk-weaving establish-
ment), 180

Chili province, population of, 11

China, government of, I, 23;
revolutions in, 2, 3 ; population
of, 3, 11, 123 British trade
with, 3, 4, 7-10, 13, 143 coal-
fields in, 5, 63 railroad con-
struction in, 6, 73 cotton
cultivation in, 10, 113 fishing
in, 21; filthy streets of, 25;
dogs in, 37, 38 ; dust-storms in,

1876,

Mouth)

Lndex

38; otter fisheries in, 393
Feng-shui in, 41, 61, 62, 715
hospitality in, 45, 46 ; peasants
in, 58; floods of 1870 in, 63;
pagodas in Eastern, 71; official
convoys in, 112, 113, 130; his-
torical plays in, 116; gentle-
man’s residence in, 1413 a
dinner-party in, 142, 143; re-
ligion of the people of, 145
(see also Féng-shui) ; stonework
in, 148; snakes and tortoises
in, 148, 149; pastimes in, 157 ;
inland postage in, 158, 159;
saddles in, 176 ; foot-binding in,
186, 206-209 ; tea-drinking in,
186 ; Pliny’s account of, 250-
252; England and, in 1839,
252

China Express, the, 40

China Inland Mission at Chung-
king, 158, 172, 211, 2133; at
Shasze, 29

China Merchants’ Steam Navi-
gation Co., 6, 243; wreck of a
steamer of the, 202

Chinese boarding-school at Chang
sho, 229

Chinese chess, 157

Chinese cities, filth of, 167, 168

Chinese guilds, 202, 203

Chinese residence, description of
a, near Chung-king, 181-183

Chin féng po, pass called, 48, 49

Ching Chiang (Clear River), 33

“Ching Kiang Sze” (Taoist
temple), 60

Ching-tan, triple rapid of the, 61

“Chi-pa” (rapids), 51, 67, 71

Chiu shih kang (rocklets), 200

Cho-hwang, tomb of, 239

Chota hazari, 186, 219, 220

Lndex

Chuan Ho (River of Szechuan),
95, 239. See Yang-tse kiang
Chung-chow (city), 113, 114, 119;

ancient site of, I10
Chung-king, a treaty port, 4, 5,
29; list of exports from, in
1867..8, 9; Customs station
opened near, 132 2.3; first view
of, 133, 1343 arrival at, 135-
137; hongs at, 136; distance
of, from the sea, 137 and 2. ;
British consular agents in, 138 ;
Buddhist procession at, 139;
situation of, 149, 1643; missions
in, 154-156, 158, 165, 166,
172-4; native Banking Corpo-
ration at, 161, 162; walk along
the foreshore of, 162-165;
battlements of, 165; rising in
1885..166; dinner-parties at,
168 ; a walk through, 169-172 ;
ponies of, 176; native guilds
in, 201-203 ; cabs of, 203; di-
vision of, 203-204 ; the crema-
toria of, 204; suburban resi-
dence near, 204-206 ; a dinner
cooked in European style at,
210, 211 ; farewell to, 214-217 ;
barometrical readings at, 254,
255; opened to British trade,
281-286 ; voyage of s.s, Lee-
chuen to, 287-300; address of
welcome presented to Mr. Little
by foreign residents in, 301-302
Chung-king Transport Co., 38
Chung-ku lo, temple called, 103
Chung-tan ho, river, 232, 233
Climate called Shui-tu (Water-
earth), 33
Cloud-mist Mountain, 44-48
Clouded Sun City (Yun-yang
hsien), 98-100

395

Club-feet question, the, 186, 206-
209

Coalfields in China, 5, 6, 250,
263; near Chang-sho, 129;
near Chung-king, belonging to
the Tungs, 186-192, 196-198

Coal-baskets (to-tze), 190, 197,
198

Coal-dust, made into patent fuel,
68; at Kwei-chow, 90, 91

** Coal” Gorge, 131, 298

Cock’s Head (cliff), 253

Confucius, the Sage Lao-tse a
contemporary of, 160; the
Chinese and, 173

Confucianism, 214

Cotton cultivation in China, 11

Cotton junk on the rocks, 56, 57

Crematoria of Chung-king, the,
204

Cross-beam rapid, 71

Customs, the, at Kwei-chow-fu
87, 88

Davip, Pére Amand, 155, 174,
259, 266

Despatch bearers, 112, 113, 130

Dinner-party, a Chinese, 142, 143 ;
at Chung-king, 168; a dinner
cooked in European style, 210,
211

*©Dismount from your horse”
rapid, 292

Dogs in China, 37, 38

Donald, Mr., 278

Double Dragon rapid, 229

Dragon Gate, lagoon of the, 299

*‘Dragon King,” mouth of the,
232

Dragon King Cavern, 42-44

Dragon’s Ford Bay, 273

Drought at Kwei-chow-fu, 90, 93

x

306

Drum and Bell Lodge (temple),
103

Dryanda Garden, 107

Ducks’ feathers, vessel laden with,
216

Dust-storms, 38

EARTHENWARE factories at Yang
tu chi, 116

Edwards, Dr., 211

Eight Genii Gorge, 296

England, trade with China, 3,
7-10, 13, 143 war with China
in 1839, story of, 252

Entomology of Szechuan, 266

Exports, list of, from Chung-king
in 1897..8, 9

** Fan back reach,” 229

Fan Loch, 131

** Feng-hsiang ” (Bellows Gorge),
81-83, 85, 89, 91, 292

Féng-shui(or Geomancy) in China,
41, 61, 62, 71, 221, 238, 244;
of Wan hsien, 104, 105; in
Chung-king, 146-148, 151; of
Chéng-tu, 277

Féng-tu-Chéng, city of, 118-123,
239-241

Ferns, 263

Fire Smoke Rock, 75

Fire-wind rapid, 232

Fish in Szechuan, 267

Fishing in China, 21, 73; with
otters, at Ichang, 39

Fish-mouth pool, 227

Five-Mountain Point, 113

Floods in China, 1870..63 ; Féng-
tu washed away, 122

Flora of Szechuan, 264-266

Flower-garden, a celebrated, near
Chung-king, 204, 205

Lnaex

“Flowery Walls” (island), 110

Foochow, Kushan monastery in, 40

Foot-binding in China, 186, 206-
209, and ;

‘Foreign devil” term, unknown
in Szechuan, 79

Forest trees in Szechuan, 264-266

‘*Four Streams” (Szechuan), 31

French Catholic establishment,
Chung-king, 154-156

Fu-chow, city of, 33, 125, 126,
232-235, 240; temples at, 127

Fuh t’an (rapid), 108

Fukien province, population of, 12

Furnace Gate Gorge, 240

Fu-tu Kwan, 178

GANHUI province, population of, .
12

Gardner, Mr. Christopher (Con-
sul), 68, 246

Get-down-from-horse Rapid, 81

Glorious Rapid. See Yun-yang

God, various names for, 155, 156

Gold - washing in the Upper
Yang-tse, 102

Gong Gorge, 224, 225, 298

“* Goose-tail” rock, 83

Gordon, General, and the Tai-ping
rebellion, 3

Gorge of the Eight Cliffs, ror, 102

Gorge of the Military Code, 61,
64, 290

Gorge of the River Temple, 60

Granite valley, near Nan-To, 55

‘€ Grave-levelling law,” the cele-
brated, 145

Gray, Mr., 278

Great River. See Yang-tse kiang

Guilds in China, 202, 203

Guppy, Dr., of H.M.S. Hornet,
255, 256

Lndex

HAL, Captain, of the emesis,
252

Hankow, city of, 18, 24, 25, 243-
247; cotton mills in, 10; the
“bund” at, 16, 173 price of
salt in, 234

Han River, 18, 244, 255, 256

“ Han-shui mei ” (salt-water girls),
2047

Hanyang, city of, 18, 19, 244

Hart, Sir Robert, 278

Héng-liang-tse (rapid), 67, 71, 292

Henry, Dr., 51

Herring Mountain, 232

Hing lung t’an (Glorious Rapid),
294, 295

Ho, Admiral (“ Vade mecum to
Szechuan”), 234, 245, 246

“Hoa Hoa Chen ” (Flowery
Walls), 110

Hoa Hoa Lo, tower named, 245

“ Hoang mao” hsia (Yellow Cat
Gorge), 53

Ho-chow, city of, 140

Holland, Mr., 287

Honan province, population of, 12

Hong-kong, British imports to,
4,8

Hongs (buildings) at Chung-king,
136

Hosie, Mr., 139

Hospitality, Chinese, 45, 46

Hotel bill at Chin féng po (pass),

49

“Ho yen shih” (Fire Smoke
Rock), 75

** Hsia-ma tan ” (rapid), 80, 81

Hsing-hsi-tang, Mr., 139

Hsin t’an (New Rapid), 294,
295

Hue, Abbé, 244

Hukwang plain, the, 227

307

Hunan province, population of,
12; timber from, 19

Hung sha chi (Red Sand Point),
103

Hung shiu chuen (fanatical leader),
76, 213; conversion of, 2

Hu-peh province, 256; population
of, 12; lagoons, 21; plain of,
32; boundary of, 74; village of
Nan Mu yu’rh in, 75, 76

“ Hu-shu-tse ” (rapid), 82

Hu-ya hsia (Tiger Teeth Gorge),
34 35

Hwang ling Miao, 242, 243

‘““Hwang piao tsz’,” (yellow
paper), 105

Hwang Sheng Kang, rocky point
called, 20

Hwang-ue ling (Herring Moun-
tain), 232

Hwui-chow foo, 235

ICHANG, city of, 4,5, 33, 36, 40,
49, 261; the approach to, 34,
353 foreign community of, 37,
38 ; trade of, 38; otter fisheries
at, 39; temple near, 40, 41;
rocks off, 48

Ichang Gorge, 44, 51, 53) 545
243, 260, 288; quarries near,
53

Imperial Maritime Customs, 9, 10

Imports, British, to China, 3, 4,
4-10

Tron Coffin Gorge, 75

“Tron Threshold ” (rapid), 117

I-tu, district city of, 33

JossEs, near the city of Wan, 102
Junks from Szechuan on Yang-tse
River, §2, 63, 94, 95, 106, IIT,
112, 222-224; wreck of, IIS,

308

116; mooring-ground for, 227,
228 ; increase of traffic on Yang-
tse, 247

Karpinc Coal Mining Co., 6

Kansu province, population of, 11;
boats from, 198

Kao-chia chen, town of, 118

Kao-tsao, aquatic plant, 21

Kia-ling Ho (Small River), 133,
171, 181, 215, 217

Kiangnan, ‘‘Great
258

Kiang peh Ting, city of, 171,
215, 217, and 2.

Kiangsi Guildhall, 153

Kiangsi province, 253; popula-
tion of, 12; missions of, 174

Kiangsu province, population of,
12

Kiangtung, $.8.. 243

King-Chow, city of, 27, 31

King ho kou, village called, 27

King River. See Yang-tse kiang

Kin-sha River, 261

Kitten Rapid, 81, 292

Kiukiang, 16

“Ko tao shan” (Mount of the
Taoist Ko), 243

Kublai Khan, 145

Kuling, stern-wheeler, 285

Kung, Prince, 214

Kung lung Rapid, 126, 289

Kung t’an H6, River, 126, 127

Kushan monastery in Foochow,
40

Kwangsi province, population of,
12

Kwangtung province, population
of, 12

Kwan-yin hsia (Gorge), 197

Kwei-chow-fu city, 65, 68, 83,

Lake” of,

_Kwei-hwan.

Lndex

84, 290, 291, 293; manu-
facture of salt at, 35; the
Customs at, 87-89; revenue of,
88; drought at, 90, 91 ; streets
and harbour of, 91-93 ; singing
girls at, 93, 94 ; ponies of, 176,
177, 196, 197, 200
Kwei-chow province, 159 ; popu-
lation of, 12
Kwei-fu, 112. See Kwei-chow-fu
See Kwei-chow-fu
Kwei-kwan barrier, 4, 237
Kwei-yang-Fu, city, 159

“ LADDER of Méng-liang ” (Cliff),
84, 85

‘‘Lamp-shine” Gorge, 53

‘‘Lao-chiin Tung” (Cave of the
Sage Lao-tse), 159-161

Lao-lung-Tung (Cavern), 81

Lao-ma (Old Horse Rapid), 96.

Lao-tse the Sage, 159, 160

Leechuen, s.8., voyage of, to
Chung-king, 277, 287-300

Letters’ Water River, 140

‘* Liang-toh,” channel called, 219,
220

**Li chéng yuen” (Garden of un-
deflected gain), 233, 234

Life-boats on the Yang-tse, 82,
243, 245, 246, 288, 291

Li Hung Chang, 281, 284, 285,
287

Likin office at Kwei-chow-fu, 87

Likin stations. See Tax stations

‘«Likwei Tan” (rapid), 82

Limestone mountains, 263

Limestone quarries, near Ichang,
53

Li-min fu, walled city of, 133

Lin chia kou, farmstead of, 192,
193

Lndex

Lin-chiang, river of, 197

Lin-sze, village of, 128

Li-tu, town of, 127

Loch of the Tang Family, 132

Lo-chi, village of, 131; mat-
making at, 229

London Mission at Chung-king,
172

“ Longevity ” city, 129, 229

Lu-chow, salt guild of, 276

Lukan Gorge, 60

Lung ching Wan, rapid at, 273

Lung-ma-chi, stream called, 61

Lung-mén Hao, 171

Lung Wang Tung (Dragon King
Cavern), 42-44

Lu-tsz’ T’o, expanse of the, 131

Lu-tze To, village of, 132

MACDONALD, Sir Claude, xii., 287
Mai-sze-yeh (Mr. Mai), 139
Manchus, the, in China, 208-210
Man-tze (“savages”), caves of
the, 147, 198 .
Margary, murder of, in Yiinnan,
4, 138
Maritime Customs of China, 9, 10
Matung Chi, 34
Mat industry at Lochi, 131, 229
Matting from Chang-sho, 129
“’Méng-liang ti” (Ladder of
Méng-liang), 84, 85
**Men Pai” (Door Shields), 109
Mesney, General, on snake and
tortoise friendship, 148, 149
Messengers, official, 130
Miao chi-tse (Temple
Rapid), 97, 293
Miao-Ho, village of, 60
Miao-tse saddle, 176
Mien-hoa pu, village of, 154
Min River, 261

Stairs

3U9

Mineral baths near Warm Spring
Gorge, 197

Mineral wealth of Szechuan, 268

Missions and missionaries in
Chung-king, 154-156,158, 172-
174

Monsoons, 207

Mooring-ground for junks, 227,
228

Morra, game of, 142

Mount Omi, 262

Mount of the Taoist Ko, 243

Mu-chu tan (rapid), 75

Mutung, reach of, 229

Myers, Mr., 278

“Myriad” city (Wan _hsien),
103

NANKING, 258; burning of, 214

Nan Mu yu’rh, village of, 75, 76

Nan-To, place called, 54

Narrow Barrier, place named, 83

Neumann, Mr., 29

“Ngai-teh Tang” (Hall of the
Lovers of Virtue), 170

Ngan-hui, province of, 253

Nganking, city of, 16

Ning Kiang Hui-kwan (Kiangsi
Guildhall), 153

‘¢ Niu-Kan ma-fei hsia ” (Ox-liver,
Horse-lungs Gorge), 59, 60,
123, 260, 289

Niu-kou-tan (Oxhead rapid), 67,
70, 292

OFFICIAL convoys in China, 112,
113, 130

Old Dragon Cave, 31

Old Horse Rapid, 96

Old Lady of Shen, boat named,
135

Omi, Mount, 262

310

Opera company from Wan hsien,
116

Opium cultivation in Western
provinces, 193

Opium smoking, 74, 194, 195, 212

Opossum Point, 34

Ornithology of Szechuan, 266

Otter fisheries at Ichang, 39

Otter’s Cave rapid, 56, 289

Oxhead rapid, 67, 70, 292

Ox-liver, Horse-lungs Gorge, 59,
60, 123, 260, 289

Pa-cHow, city of, 140 ; island of,

32

Pagodas ; at Shasze, 27, 285 at
Fu-chow, 125; in Eastern
China, 71, 72; near the city of
Wan, 103

Pai ai Shan (White Cliff Moun-
tains), 41, 42

‘© Pai-Chien ” (rocky ledge), 124

‘¢ Pai-Fang”” (triumphal arches),
102, 128, 141

Pai-ti Chéng, old city of, 86

Pa ngai hsia (Gorge of the Eight
Cliffs), 101, 102

Pao-Chao, General, 59

Pao-ning-fu, city of, 140; burned,
277

Pastimes of the Chinese, 157

Patung, district city of, 71, 72,
291

Peh-hsiang Kai, street in Chung-
king, 175

Pei-lo (back-baskets), 236

Pei-shih, village of, 76

Pei tsz, baskets called, 119

Photographer, a, in Chung-king,
211, 212

Pien H6, channel called, 24

Pierced Mountain Gorge, 58, 59

Index

Pillar of Heaven (limestone pin-
nacle), 54

“ P’ing-fen” (grave-levelling law),
145

Ping-shan, 242

“Ping-shu Pao-chien” hsia
(Gorge of the Military Code),
61, 62, 64, 290

Pliny, account of China, 250-252

Polo, Marco, on the ‘‘ Great
River Kian,” 258

Ponies, Kwei-chow, 176-178, 196,
197, 200

Popoff, Mr., estimate of the
population of China, 11, 12

Poppy cultivation in Szechuan,
118, 124, 193; at Wan hsien,
104

Population of China, 11, 12

Porpoises, 34

Post couriers, 159

Poyang Lake, 257

Proclamation ve the Earth-pulse,
150-152

Pure Stream temple, 60

P’u-tan, place called, 20

RAILROAD from Shanghai to Woo-
sung, 248, 249

Railway construction in China,
6, 7, 248

Red Sand Point, 103

Reeds in the Yang-tse River, 21,
22

Religion of China, 145. See also
Féng-shui

Richthofen ; on Szechuan coal-
fields, 192, 250; and the red
basin of Szechuan, 261

Roberts, Mr. P., 76

Roman Catholic missionaries in
Chung-king, 165, 166, 172

Lnilex

Sal Feng tu, hamlet of, 232
Salt, from Szechuan, 10; at Ta-ling
city, 79
Salt-boilers at Kwei-chow, 85
* Salt depéts at Fu-chow, 234, 235
Salt junks of Szechuan, 217, 218,
222; stranded, 230
Sampans of the Upper Yang-tse,
237
Sam-shu (distilled spirit), 157
Sandstones of Szechuan, 268
San kiang tsao (Race of the three
rivers), 229
San yeu tung, glen named, 48
Scholar’s rapid, 232
Scinyang, district of, 273
«Scissors ” Gorge, 129, 232, 297
Seaweed, imported from the Japan
Islands, 235
Séng Ho. See Yang-tse River
Shanghai, 15, 24, 25 ; trade of, 43
price of salt in, 234 ; railroad
from, to Woosung, 248, 249;
waterworks at, 249
‘‘Shan-hu Pa” (Coral Strand),
163
‘¢Shan-pei To” (Fan Loch), 131,

229

Shansi Banks, 161, 162

Shansi Guildhall, 201-203

Shansi province, population of,
11; wildfowl in, 22; droughts
in, 269

Shansi merchant, autobiography of
a, 23

Shantung province, population of,
II

Sha-ping Pa, mansion of, 179-
181

Shasze, port of, 18, 23-29, 2543
the most important mart in
China, 24, 25; embankment

311

in, 26, 28; pagoda at, 27, 28;
riot at, in 1898, 29

Sheng-chi Chang, market town
of, 123

Shen Potse, boat called, 29-31,
215

Shensi province, population of,
II

Shih chia-lung, coal depét of, 189,
192, 196

Shih chia te (reach), 232

Shih ma ho (stone horse temple),
199

Shih-ma Tsao (Stone-Horse Crib),
178

Shih men (stone gate), 199

Shih Pao chai, rock called, 109,
IIo

Shih Tao Tse (Stone Headland),
place called, 32

Shin-tan pilots, 66

Shin-tan rapid, 68, 69, 290

Shin T’an, village of, 61, 63

Shu, graduate named, 72

“‘ Shui fu san wan,” josses called,
102

Shui-tu (Water-earth),
named, 33

Siao H6 (Lesser River), 91, 140,
171, 181, 183, 204, 215; valley
of the, 79, 149

Siao-ho-kou, 19

“¢Siao mao-rh” (Kitten rapid),
81

Sikawei, near Shanghai, 254

Silk cultivation in Western China,
11, 180

Silkworm Back Rapid, 241

Simonoseki, Treaty of, 286

Singing girls at Kwei-chow-fu, 93,
94

climate

312

Smoke-towers, 59

Snake and tortoise friendship,
244; General Mesney on, 148,
149

Soap-trees, 265

Sow Rapid, 75

Spence, Mr. Donald, 40, 78, 139

Split Hill (cliff), 253

Spring Island, 32

Steam communication on the
Yang-tse River, 5

Stone family pool, 232

“*Stone Precious Castle’ (rock),
109

Stone quarry, Mr. Tung’s, 146,
147, 150-152

Streets in Chinese cities, 25

Su-chow, city of, 25, 261

Suilin, city of, 140

Szechuan, province of, 43 coal-
mines in, 5, 6, 186-192; trade
of, xi., 8, 9; population of, 123
river of, 27 ; boatmen from, 31 ;
junks from, on Yang-tse River,
52; boundary of, 74; area of,
134, 1353 rebellions in, 77; term
“foreign devil” unknown in,
79; climate of, 138; junks of,
built at Wan hsien, 106, 111,
1123 scenery of, 108; caves in
sandstone cliffs of, 147 ; tobacco
of, 1953 rivers of, 197, 1993
depopulated by Chang-Hsien-
chung, 199; native guilds in,
202; salt wells of, 10, 234, 235 3
the red basin of, 261 ; flora and
fauna of, 264-266 ; fish in, 267 ;
area of, 268 ; mineral wealth of,
268 ; famine in, 273

‘*TA-CHANG,” mishap known as,
IOI, 102

Lndex

Ta chi kou, village of, 82

“Ta Fo Sze” (Great Buddha’s
Hall, 133

Tai-Hu (Great Lake), 258

Tai-ping ho (River of Peace), 31

Tai-ping Rebellion, the, 2, 3, 75,
76, 180

Tai-Wo, steamer, 15

Ta-Kiang (Great River). See
Yang-tse kiang

Ta-ling, city of, 79

Tan chia t’o (Loch of the Tang
Family), 132

Taoist monastery, on the top of
Yun wu Shan, 47, 48

Taoist religion, 160

Taoist show, a, 206

Taoist temple, of Miao-Ho, 60 ;
at Pei-shih, 76

‘¢Ta-Tung” (Otter’s Cave Rapid),
56

Tax stations in China, 4, 12, 13

Taylor Mission, the, in China, 213

Tea-house, Chinese, 62, 63

Temples, near Ichang, 40-44; of
Literature (Wen-feng shan), 80 ;
at Kwei-chow, 86; of the
Eastern Ocean, 98 ; in Clouded
Sun City, 99; called Chung-ku
lo, 103; at Féng-tu, 119, 120;
at Fu-chow, 127; at Chang-
sho, 129 ; called ‘‘Ta Fo Sze,”
133; round Chung-king, 159-
161, 183, 184

Temple Stairs Rapid, 97, 293

‘*Teng ying tse’ hsia (Gorge of
the Lamp-shine), 53

Three kingdoms, wars of the, 83,
84

T’ieh Kwan tsai hsia (Iron Coffin
Gorge), 75

T’ieh men ka’rh (rapid), 117

Lndex

“Tien tze Shan” (Mountain of
the Son of Heaven), 118-123

Tiger’s Beard (rapid), 82

Tiger Teeth Gorge, 34, 35

Ting, Mr., walk through Chung-
king with, 169-175

Ti-shan Tang, benevolent institu-
tion at Chung-king, 169, 170

Tobacco in Szechuan, 195, 267,
268

‘Tortoise Gate’ (narrows), 232

Tortoises, friendship with snakes,
148, 149, 244

‘T’o tu tze” (rapid), 82

Tower called Hoa Hoa Lo, 245

Towing-path at Chung-chow, 113

Tow-lines, made of bamboo,
115

Trackers on the Upper Yang-tse,
57) 94, 95, I1O-112, 115

Trade in China, 3, 4, 7-10, 13,
14

Tranquil rock, 232

Transit passes, 87

Tsan pei tan (Silkworm Back
Rapid), 241

Tsao mén hsia (Furnace Gate
Gorge), 240

“Tsei ka tse’? (Narrow Barrier),
83

Tseng, Marquis, 248

Tseng Kwo-Fan, 248

Tsz’ shui Ho (river), 140

Tung, Mr., residence of, 178-181 ;
coal-mine belonging to, 186-
192

Tung, official of Chung-king, 199

T’ung oil manufacture, 104, 115,
124, 189, 265

T’ung-Ling rapid, 59

“Tung ling hsia” (Pierced
Mountain Gorge), 55, 58, 59

Ji3

Tung-Loa-yeh (Mr. Tung), 139 3
visit to country seat of, 140-
152

“‘Tung-lo hsia” (Brass Gong
Gorge), 132, 224, 225

Tung-ting Lake, 27, 32,
254

Tung tsz’ yu’rh (Dryanda Garden),
107

Tung yang tse (cataract), 97,
294

‘* Twisted stern ” junks, 233

Tyler, Mr., 278, 279

233)

VARNISH-TREE, 58,
See also Tung
Vingot, Pere, 154

104, 115.

WabE, Sir Thomas, 248, 281,
284

© Wai pi-ku’rh,”
126, 127, 236

Walsham, Sir John, 5, 285

Wang, Mr., 170, 171

Wang-chia tan, rapid of, 230

Wang sze Ta Jen (Wang, the
Fourth Excellency) of Kwei-
chow-fu, 92

Wan Hien, 296

Wan hsien (city), 102-106, 112
vale of, 105

Wang sho kung (Temple of Lon-
gevity), 99, 100

Warm Spring Gorge, 197, 229

Water-trackers, 57, 55. See also
Trackers

Well, a dry, at Féng-tu, 121

Wen-feng shan (Temple of Litera-
ture), 80

Wén Fo Shan,
43

boats called,

peak called,

314

Wen-tang hsia (Warmpool Gorge),
197, 229

Western China, British imports
into, 73 exports from, 8-10;
silk cultivation in, 11 ; popu-
lation of, 12

Wheat plantations, 33

Wheeler, Dr., 139, 140

White Cliff Mountains,
Ichang, 41, 42

White Elephant Street, Chung-
king, 175

Wildfowl, the Chinese and, 22

Wild-goose Gate Barrier (city),
22

Wild Mule Gorge, 227, 298;
rapid, 132

Witches’ Mountain Great Gorge,
72, 73, 78

Woosung, railroad to Shanghai
from, 248, 249

Wuchang, city of, 18, 244; hill
in, 248

Wu-ling chi (point called), 108,
113

“«Wupans” (sampans), 237, 238

Wu-sankwei, rebellion suppressed
by; 77> 208

Wu-shan, city of, 73, 78, 80, 81,
292

Wu-shan Gorge, 80, 292

Wu-shan-ta-hsia (Witches’ Moun-
tain Great Gorge), 72, 73,
78

near

‘* Va-MEN runners,” 130

Yang-tse River, the only road of
intercommunication between
the east and west of China,
ix., xX. 43 steamers on, 15,
16; an affluent of, 19 ; rests on

Lndex

banks of, 21, 22; different
names of the, 27, 253; entry
into the upper region of, 32,
333 width of, above Ichang, 51,
52; summer rise of, 53; stretch
of, known as ‘‘ Yao-tsa ho,” 55 ;
trackers on the, 57, 58, 94) 955
110-112, 115; at Wu-shan, 80;
gold-washing in the Upper, 102 5
known as the Chuan Ho and
the Séng Ho, 132; affluent of,
known as the Siao Hé, 1403
ferries across, at Chung-king,
159, 166; course of, between
Ichang and Chung-king, 225;
Blakiston and the voyageurs of
the, 231 ; life-boats on the, 243,
245, 246; increase of junk
traffic on, 247 ; volume of water,
255, 256; sediment in, 256,
2573 Marco Polo on the, 258 ;
sources of the, 259 ; fishin the,
267; first ascent of the Upper,
by s.s. Leechuen, 287-300

Yang-tse valley, physiography of
the, 253-271

Yang tu chi, village of, 116

© Vao-tsa-ho,” stretch of the
Yang-tse River, known as, 55,
261, 289

© Yeh-lo tze” (Wild Mule Rapid),
132, 227, 298

Yeh-tan rapid, 66, 69, 70, 291

‘Yellow cat” Gorge, 53

Yellow River, the, 269

Yen men Kwan (city), wildfowl
in, 22

“Yen-tun ” (smoke-towers), 59

Yen-wei shih (rock), 83

“Yin” (Dead), temple dedicated
to Emperor of the, 119, 120

¥V-/ing, twin screw boat, 36

Index 315

Yun wu Shan (Cloud-mist Moun-
tain), 44-48

Yun-yang hsien (city), 98-100,

217 2. 294; rapid at, 246 7., 272-282,

Yung-tse, town called, 32 294, 295; iron of, 108

Yiinnan province, population of, | Yung Yang Tse (Temple of the
12 Eastern Ocean), 98

§* Yo sha Chi” (rapid), 82
Yule, Colonel, 258
Yii Mantse (anti-missionary rebel),

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Archibald J. Little, F.R.G.S.

100

Pinup athows in wadding tn Bind G.Philip & Son, London & Iiverpoot.

: S j a, Co L ited
NV. B.—‘ Foo’ at end of a name = city. ‘Hien’=town. ‘ Kiang’ = river. Londen Sampacn Lom Marston & Ca Limnted

CONSERVATION 1999