Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/114

72 reached K'uei Fu, the first town worthy of the name that we had passed, built on the steep hillside of an open valley. Our struggle with the rapids and gorges proper is at an end; henceforth our way will lie along the bottoms of more open valleys, with only an occasional rapid here and there to interrupt our passage. K'uei Fu is of little concern to the British manufacturer. Some cotton yarn and coarse cotton cloth I saw, but the bulk of the shops appeared to be concerned chiefly with joss-sticks, native foodstuffs, a little local silver ware, and pawned goods. The yarn, I was told, came from the mills of Wuchang, and a query from one of my informants as to whether similar goods were produced in my country confirmed me in my opinion that the good people of K'uei Fu are not in the habit of trafficking in foreign goods. No wonder the members of the Blackburn Commercial Mission remarked, "Commerce, the subject of our report, scarcely exists until Wan Hsien is reached." If K'uei Fu does nothing else, it serves to throw a not insignificant light upon some of the