Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/129

Rh eloquently of the "enormous difficulties" of the "chimerical schemes which have been put forward from time to time for the improvement of this part of the river." That steamers can surmount the obstacles was first proved by Mr Little, who ascended in a small steam-boat called the Lechuen in 1898. The account which he has given of this pioneer voyage is interesting in the extreme. That the boat was towed by coolies up some of the worst rapids, and that the journey occupied eleven steaming days or, including deductions, three weeks in all, in no way detracts from the merit of that gentleman's enterprise. "It was," as Mr Little himself points out, "a first experiment, which could not be hurried; it was, for necessary reasons, made at a season when the rapids were at their worst, and it was made with a vessel of insufficient power;" and it was followed a year later by a second ascent in the Pioneer, a boat built on a larger and more powerful scale, which may claim to be the first vessel which ever made her way from Ichang to Ch'ung-k'ing under her own steam.