Monday, 19th September.—Set off soon after dawn on our life-boat which was lightened by the setting ashore of our passengers as also the four carrying coolies whom we had engaged on Mount Omi for the round trip, and for whom this was the nearest point for them to make their home from. They went off on the opposite (right) shore, pleased with their earnings and- dressed in the sheepskins they had bought so cheap at Tachienlu. The valley now opened out still more, the river flowing between undulating hills, highly cultivated and well wooded, the right bank being formed of the outermost northern foot hills of Mount Omi, whose distant mass, as seen from this point, and when occasionally visible through the haze which seems always to prevail in Szechuan, reminded us by its appearance of the Litshan mountains behind Kiukiang. About noon we entered another gorge, or rather gate, of red sandstone cliffs, Known as Chienfo Ngai, or Thousand Buddhas Precipice," the whole surface of which had been panelled out into niches containing images of immunerable Buddhas. A fine road, six feet wide, had been cut out along the cliff side, executed, according to an inseription in the rock, from the fifteenth to the twenty-fifth years of the reign of Kien Lung, and again restored in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tao Kuang. The cost had been defrayed by the citizens of Hia-kiang Hsien, in which district this celebrated cliff, together with the neighbouring town of Fongaikai, are situated. Wo noticed six of fifty taels each amongst. the list of subscribers,—large sums for these parts. The figures were exceedingly well-cut, about half life size, some smaller, and were remarkable for the distinct Indian type prevailing; narrow waists, limbs showing their outline through gauzy habiliments, and tall Hindoo head gear: many neck laces onthe bare bosomsof the female figures, which is quite opposed to Chinese ideas of propriety. Others were seated with a I across the knee and in other informal a improper attitudes. Many of the panels are very ancient and their carvings undecipherable; others appear to have been touched up recently. It was a very striking sight and we were glad to embrace the opportunity of our Captain stopping at the village to land cargo and make purchases, to goashoreand secure some photographs. The crowd was not aggressive, our only danger being that in their anxiety to see what we wore doing, they might push each other off the narrow ledge into the river, in which case we might have suffered as the indirect cause of the trouble. Hence we dared not stay long nor do all we wanted. From hereon the stream quieter and the rapids insignificant when compared with the grand cataracts of the day before but we made good progress notwithstanding. We had to content ourselves with cold rice on board the raft, but to-day, about dinner time, we noticed a noise as of frying in fat, and thought our ingenious cook must have rigged up a furnace in the stern behind the luggage. We discovered, however, to our surprise, that the crackling noise came from the rolling of the boulders over the river bottom, the sound being transmitted through the water, the contact of which with te hollow bamboos, acting like sounding boards, produced this marvellous noise. Yesterday the bamboos were mostly submerged, but to-day being well out of water they resounded like organ pipes. The noise was constant, showing the shingly bed to be constantly in motion. We passed a thirteen-storied square pagoda, such as are only seen in Western Szechuan, and were struck with the wealth of magni cent huang ko trees (Banians; ficus infectoria) along the banks. At length we traversed the whirlpool formed by the junction of the Tung and the Ya and so completed our circuit of the valleys of these two fascinating rivers in just sixty days. The hitherto pellucid waters of the Ya now became turbid through admixture of the milky water of the Tong, which again two miles lower down, are all merged in the thick red mud of the Min at Kiating. This latter city we reached in safety a four o'clock, having taken ten hours to traverse the forty miles from Hungya—just double the time which the same distance occupied yesterday. We were most hospitably received here by the members of the China Inland Mission who have now obtained a roomy pleasantly situated establishment in this, one of the most pleasing of China cities, and right glad we were, while delayed here transhipping to a junk bound down the Yangtze to Chunging, to escape the amenities of a Chinese 'These rivers are navigated by bamboo rafts exclusively and these have arrived evolution at the perfection of strength an' lightness, while possessing the valuable quality for rough navigation, that of being limber at the same time. Our Captain informed us that his raft was calculated to carry 30,000 catties freight, or just eighteen tons. They can take no loads up stream, but on our way down we met many rafts being arduously tracked up against the current, laden with huge empty wine jars which the forty thieves could have found ample refuge; there being a large wine export from the rich districts of Ya-an and Hungya.
Tuesday, 20th September.—All day settling about the boat to goon in. We had written from Tachienlu. to the Banker on whom we had a credit here, to engage room for us in a boat to leave to-day: we found a large roomy laden cargo-boat, all ready for us: the deck cabins, which had been reserved for our accommodation, were spacious, fully equal to that of the ordinary Yangtze kwatse, hut the price to be paid for the week's journey down strean\ to Chungking, 60,000 was exorbitant 50, finding the laodah was immovable, we repudiated the contract and ordered that a small passenger boat should be hired to start on the morrow: negotiations for this were almost concluded when the original laodah offered to take us for half the sum the Banker professed to have agreed for, and s0, on Wednesday, 2st September, we went on board, but not to start.
Thursday, 22nd September.—Our laodah got his crew together at Inst and we were off at 7.30, while at breakfast; sixteen men rowing us down the swift' current, We shot across and passed down the rapid runs at the feet of the colossal Buddha, past the group of red-walled temples and monasteries peeping out through the dark so all too quickly out of Loshan foliage that crowns the purple dif, and Hien, the district of the "Joyful Mountains," as that of which the city of Kiating forms the centre is well named; and then entered a wide tranquil reach, reminding us together with the dark Szechuan haze overhead, of Greenhithe reach on the Thames,' which it about resembled in size and in the green wooded hills sloping down to the water's edge. Its Gravesend was below in the shape or a busy shipping town called Tsuken Tan (rapid), and immediately below it we drifted down a long continuous rapid, or rather "race," running between lofty boulder banks, to Taosze Kuan, (Taoist sanctuary) a vertical red cliff, with picturesque temple on its summit, and with outlying rocks, upon which the rapid_ sets direct and which we shaved by a hair's breadth, notwithstanding most vigorous rowing. We were, however, informed that all junks shaved these rocks as closely, and that not a few come to grief. Below this again was Tichshih Pa, (Ironstone Bank),—overhanging red sandstone cliffs, five to six hundred feet in height, crowned by an elegant Buddhist temple, embowered in trees. At ten, we passed the market town (Chang) of Motse, 4 picturesque place, situated on a low red bluff, and full of trees and temples; behind was a curious knoll of sandstone, its wall-sided top covered with forest and its steep talus terraced to the water's edge—then Cha-uetsze—Spear Fish Point,—a long big rapid. with high waves setting in to the right bank. We passed more of the thirteen-storied square pagodas of Indian type, peculiar to this region; and, at three, another picturesque market town, called Nichichang, Mudstream Market;"an hour later, the wide reach of Siaokia Wan, (the bight of the Siao clan), which terminated in an eight-knot rapid, tearing through a hedge of fantastically shaped rocks; to Kanpehshu, (Dry Cypress) a large busy town, making a really heautifal picture with its black and white houses and many-coloured temples, set in a frame of rich dark semi-tropical foliage, with a back-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.