We have just carried the British flag across the Szechuan frontier. It sounds quite sensational. But let anyone try to get through the Yangtze Rapids in a steam Taunch, and he will feel a gr-at deal more so. The most blase viveur can yet get his fill of emotions in this way between. the Hsint'an and the Yeht'an. Even the first time we traversed it that reach impressed itself upon my mind as what the Romans used to call **horrid" with rocks. Then there's such a variety of incidents. From our own pilot, who at first could not believe steam could more, so ran bolt into the first sampan he saw directly he got hold of the helm, to the special pilot of the Tungling, who ran away and hid because he understood we had a wheel-about helm, and that he would be required to turn it, and he did not know how. He had to be fetched back by soldiers, and then after Rapid with consumante alli, nearly ran iloting us through the many rocks of the
us ashore in the end, because he was given the helm to hold just for a minute, that he might know the feel of it, before going ashore. For already our pilot was wanting to pose as an old hand, who knew all about steamers, his ambition being always to whistle or to ring the engineers up, though my wary Captain insists upon keeping these two matters in his own hands. the bowsprit" but we've mixed our scrows up with bamboo lines to a frightful exten! and hung for ten minutes at a time on edge of several waterfalls, and we' wrenched things out of our decks, that were meant to make others fast to, and have careered in fine style time and again among fierce breakers. So that altogether lean gnarled-faced Ningpo engineers are to be forgiven if, as they look out, all grim ed with firing up, at the whirling waste of "I've been to London br ko 16 gauge glasses in one day, but no man tell iny of 89 big waves, or no would come, not two red boats, or life-saving boats, and wupan heavily Inden with coal. When we are towing all four we must look like 8 gigantic winged beetle, with tro blue wings of different shades on one side and two white wings on the other, the larger dragging somewhat behind. We ourselves Semon indeed. "And never before has euch 0 puffing along in the middle like a
sight been seen in Szechuan—virgin to steamers—nor anywhere else either, I should say, for we are somewhat comically fitted out for n steamer in many ways, e3- pecially as to our bow.
The villages we pass through.ontinue to present a festive appearance, always a gunboat"with many flays in the foreground firing as we draw near, and all the bays round garlanded with blue-clad men and boys, whilst the women are generally in knots or festoons round their house doors. Only new Kueichou looked dead-alive as usual, whilst wall-less P'atung presented the most theatrical effect. From its high-perched row of houses, each with its little open of green vegetable garden running down towards the river, and on this occasion deeply' blue-pencilled by blue-Jacketed women, came in the centre 4 long string of blue-gowned men hastening straight upon us, while from the left marched at the head of another blue contingent fine figure of an orange-jacket ed soldier, and from the right towards the centre stepped bravely forward the great man of the district in bright scarlet hood attended by crimson-jacketed soldiers, The three processions were fast converging upon one another when we steamed past, a heterogeneous mass, two red boats, 9 gunboat, a wnpan, but first, and the wen. People called her a ing of all the pageant, the little
steam launch on the lower river, but now we think of her as the steamer and she does her work accordingly.
'Thanks to the firmness of Mr. Holland, H.M.'s Consul at Ichang, but for which we should probably still be as of old in the days of the.s. Kuling, discussing monkeys' propensities for throwing stones. And what in the name of fortune a steamer is to do, when she actually meets a downward-bound junk floating like a log, of course, on the vast Yangtsze water-way—thanks t" Mr. Holland's firmness. the Hupeh officials have done all that was possible, and more than we desired, for our protection. There are proclamations out everywhere warning people that we come to do no harm, not even carrying any cargo, and that none is to molest us. And besides the one life-saving boat, that we wished for, they have furnished us with another also, and a gunboat, all of which we have tow, wherever the water admits. This is what even Sir Howard Vincent might call a little too much Protection. Still we are grateful, for all the Hupeh red boats appear to be manned by just the best men China produces, and the gunboat men are handy too at a rapid, nob to speak of th" protection they afford, even smiling pleasantly the while. I never saw them do it before, But this time everyone is smiling if they are not laughing. The boatmen laugh'too, the engin-cers Jaugh as they look out from their tiny engine-room at the whirling waves, whilst the pilot for the first few days could not keep from laughing whenever he saw mo. "Tam going to make myself a name, ho said, and after having believed a stenmboat could do nothing, he jumped to the other conclusion that she could do anything, drove her at the rapids, and could not believe but that by skilful steering she could b- got up waterfalls,. Hy is a capital pilot, aod all the men with us teem capital men except one poor sailor, who has to sweep up the blick and seems the sonffre-dowler of the pany, for it is not easy to keep launch clean. But in spite of the men being so good the anxious Captain hardly dares leave the deck for a moment whilst we are underway, whilst my part seem: calm, whatever happens. For go long as to, be confined fo observing, a phlegmatic I show no fear, the men think there is no cause for alarm. They little know what a gamut of terrors I have passed through whilst we whirled and twirled among those ry sharp and rugged rocks about Kueichou, or hung poised on the edge of rapi We laid up for nessly one whole day, and half anoth cause it rained. Curiously enough when it began to snow on Sunday we did some of our worst work. Chinese never seem to mind snow. The mountains look all the better for it, their summits wreathed with mist, and the blue purples are perhaps the bloer for 60 much whiteness, but we are certainly having rough weather. And it is still quite a question when we get to Chungking, or even how we yet up the dreaded Hsinlungt'an, Autor Brwioxe Lime. ist February, Like ants coming out, of an ant-hill the blue-gowned people streamed out of the gates of Kueifu, standing about three hundred feet above the winter river, and dense was the crowd that ran along the stony beach as the first boat propelled by steam-power moved up the long reach of high-masted june, hound for' up-river,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.