In bringing this account to a close, it would be well to mention that f have treated the subject as presented to the eye of one travelling in the same manner, under the same difficulties, and meeting with the same incidents as travellers going up for past, hundreds of years. It is the personal experience of their dficutis the rightful loss of property and life on the road, the great expense of transit and length of time required, that impresses the eller so vividly with the crying necessity for steamers. The many merchants and dealers whom I conversed with, would all gladly hail their advent, and asked anxiously for an opinion as to whether the route would be practicable for them. My answer to them that the river was undoubtedly suited to steam navigation, renders afew general remarks in support of an opinion on so important a topic, not uncalled for.
st be borne in mind that all the occur only to junk tracked along the shore and subject to the eddies and whirls of, and over, projecting rocks and reefs, The water was deeper and the current swifter in ascending than experienced by most other Foreigners on the up route, causing the incidents of the journey to be more numerous. With still higher water the current would be stronger, but there would be more bays, and the journey would probably. not be much longer. In coming down the water had fallen, on an average, about 10 feet, and the current was slower. Che river, then (Leginning of December) from Chungking to Ichang appeared, as we floated down the middle, a quiet stream, excepting at one or two of what are called rapid where the water below was somewhat di turbed, The name of rapid given to some of the channels is almost a misnomer, In those where the junks have to pass the term would be applicable, but not as gards the middle of the River. At some But as they are prominent, and the best of Ices, rocks and reefs are very. numerous,
bearings could be afforded by the hills and rocks on either shore, a minute survey made at low water period, with the assistance of some of the junk pilots, would render them harmless to the careful mariner. Through some of the gorges, the water glided quietly by with hardly a ripple its surface. But the proof that certain sized steamers could ascend and descend, is to be found in the fact that large junks, xlinpa 120 feet long by 14 or feet broad, drawing 4 to 5 feet of water,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.