Ichang (Hupeh Provinice)..
At dinner one eventtig in Churigkingfa, one of our friends observed: You'll not jet above " dozen yards of cycling between fore and "Tchang. The path is rough among rocks, and the journey. will tke you three works Why don't yon go down the Yangtze? You will have'no adventures on land, whereas, if you go by boat through" the gorges and over the rapids, there is a probability of your boat being smashed to Pieces and one or two of you drowne'. Tf You really: want excitement, yo by wa er Phe suggestion was excellent, "and we adopted it, A 'Himdy, sky" boat Was' hired. It was punt-abiaped, and in the atte wasa kind of box, hooded with a "Vasmning, in' which one tan of modest Lngth. might lie comfortably. where two would form a source of discomfort ty one anot r. and where three must constantly be getting their legs ina tangle. We had four oarsmen, a helmamax, and king ald, could cook, In ions, Mr, Tratman good things, beef, bread, ¥ogetahles, tinned mutton and. peas, veal, jams. a bottle of mountain dew all *h-way from Scotland, anda dozen of water from the river 'Trent—appropriately flavoured, however, at, Burton-on-T'rent—and, eggs, sardines, oranges, cigars, and doz-n things beside. The bicycles were we for' we hho yelicho yeh-ho the four oarsmen pulled us from the shore, We shouted adieux to our friends, and when shouting was ofno avail, we waved our Phandkerchiefs till, Chungking grew h-zy tinder its veil "f reek, and our cockle-she 1 of © punt was swept madly down" the twotera of the Yangrzekiang, We wore travelling with the tide, facing, ewitling, aweoping, us though there were a wager, The water was falling rapidly. The drainage of Tibet was waning for, it was Into autuain, But in spring, news of a continent thaw and Yangtze valley ty-four fect at 'Ohungki king the river drops six feet in the milo; below Chungking it falls f-urteén inches, Téias been aciantifically caloulsted at ug that in June there isa flow of one million cubic fest per second, whereas' the flow of the Thames into the ses is 2,300 fast por second. The average flow +f the Yangtz+,000 feet per s-cond, or 244 times that of the Thames. You thus soe the tremendous torrent it is.
'We hu: in our bunk, and took riga, as easily as the constant prospect. of ing' aminshéd against the rocks would permit., The four oarsmen stood 'o their pushing instead of pulling the oars.
jara well-built, minscular, cheery Ghinese, a, contrast to. the, pucker-freed helmsman, whic stood stolidly the One of the uta' phomus with his eye out. 'The yorked from the break of dawn till darktioss for in,' and all they received from the owner of the boat in return was, their rice on the way, Perhaps, worth a halfpenny 'a, head. 'This is the custom on the Yangtze. There jahdréde'of thousands, nay mi of boatr Tchang for pricically nothing., There and they take the boats down to they are employed as trackers' to pull' th loaded junks back to Chungking, a journey occupying from thres to five. months, and for which, they receive their rice anda stim total of from five to seven shillings, 'These Yangtzo.boxtmon are th" easiest going, hail-fellow-well-ition chaps in the world. they have no property in the yrorld besides a ragged jacket an'l' a fragmentary pair of trousers. They sing the whole day long. 'Their songs are' composed by. nobody knows whom. Probably. the the torrents are the composers.
big junk going down stream will have sixteen or maybe over thirty oarsmen. The stroke oar will begin,. in falsetto voice, a recitative'of a shrill, wail ki and all the while, at every Blades, his companions. break out with "Fy-ho, hey-ho, liu-hn! Rey-ho, hey-ho, hu-ha!"' The effect is peculiar. Then unn'ng crescendo, and he just reaches she limit of his run and his breath when every oarsman stamps his foot and dips his'oar with a shout Often the song is like the high-pitched intoning priest reciting the canticles. Sometimes it Funs away and comes back again, and then ring off once more. like fugue of Bach' chants are Gregorian—s curious blenditig—while tha resitatives are Tehan, th and nererthelé-s they float over the froth: waters and reverberate down the blad gorges with gushes of mystical fitness, backed junk towed slowly, yard by ma, Te is exciting to watch a huge, hump-
against the battling, foaming torrent It wind be blowing,..sqnare bamboo-ribbed sail is hoisted on the swaying bamboo mast. But the chief work is done by the trackers. The number varies occordiny to the boat and the part of the river. You se4'wo hundred men, many of them quite med, pulling, with' a ash round their shoulders and' che-ts, at the tow-line, made of spliced bamboo. Banding almost double, and swinging their arms lo-ne, they yell'at every atop, "Char, char! which is the Chines equivalent: for Pat year shoul for to it," It is a tug-of-war betiveen men and river, When the rivue seams like winning the meu get on all-fours, straining every musile. "A man on the junk begins thumping drum. When the boat yields and lurches olivad, " roar gossip from the trackers that only. liken to the sudden parkin, fou: hear from the spectators at a Ug fast: all thatch when one of the wings' prettily. With the agility of monkeys these Crackers clambber alg the rocks and up them, frequently to four or five hundred feet above the junk, and the: hang over, in amazing, heart-thumping positions. the rocks are deep grooves worn by millies of ines dragged over them. Who the line breaks the mon are shot aheall is froma bow The junk then ¢ teers wit to the nearest Fick aul commits'"nic 'With rapidity otirtiny'bark bobbed and flouted in thy great sweep of the' Yangtze cutront, Tt wax delicious. But every nsw and then we slipped anion choppy rapt which raced and yelled defiantly through the gorges, and then t' ere was danger 'And consequent healthy éxc'tement. Beautiful glens, dotted with fi's, came down from thy mountains. Groat castles of rock toppd the heights. "A milky-purple curtain if hills enclosed the view. Quaint pagodas, octagonal, rising in' tiers, stood, conscious of their charm, on msny'a rising mound. 'They wore towers of white accentuating the lexs of the scene, There was a lofty pillar of sandstone rearing on one bank, called the Sentinel Rock. A little plain' surrounded it prominence.
utastic-roofed ge huddled at the bottom. Up one side climbed''a: pagodn, with nine platform-, and each storey smaller thin the one below. 'A' carving, lotus-flow-rit ros'ed on the summit, "A cluster of rich-leaved trees crowned: the top, and inches could be n many' little temple. It was all pretty. Outside the riparian villages, "on mossy knoll goloer; the ar bright and the waters lark. desolate as. those of "Buichitha, "we"
Thy" gorges, with strop, black' walls, 88 swiftly, Wonder ov 'TheChineso have' given gevernous throste of itary O-de and the Precious Blade, fellows gorge, the gorge of the''Iron Coffin gorge, the ' Wirdbox gorge, and the—Get-Down-froth-your-Horse gorge, the Jatter so oviled because ju the dim days all: men travelling on horseback slong the: bank dismounted to do' worship to an old" dragon in ave ave. This dragon, probably, is now dead, for no one offers binge. Wo stopped at none of the towns by the way, but as long'as daylight lasted rushed on over rapids that had nppropriste names the Wild Mule rapid, broause it was 50 cantankerous and huocked you about; the Old Horse *rapid, so: calivd, no: doubt, asd cried you 'dong with xbbling ig brimips atid other rapid with Hiattios
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.