The steamers on the Upper Yangtze are all having a very bad time just now. No fewer than five of them arrived here yesterday afternoon, and all had the same report to make, that they had been very heavily fired on at a place-called Litu, four miles above Fowchow. So heavy was the firing that it looked as if the whole army were having shots at the passing steamers. There have boom several persons hurt, one being the chief engineer of the Mei-oan. While the Loong. mow was lying at Chungking on her Jast trip, there was heavy firing across the river, and one bullet penetrated the steamer and wounded one of the boys.
The chief engineer went to his assistance, when another bullet crashed into the bulkhead, and som of splinters injured the chief engineer, who, however, only received scratches. As the Wanhsien was coming down at Litu, one of the bullets entered the chief officer's room, and smashed his typewriter: another passed have had_ narrow escapes, and it through the captain's room, Many looks as if the fighting armies in Szechuan were making attempts to stop all river traffic.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.