Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/139

Rh tug and lighter alike being hauled up those rapids which do not prove amenable to steam in the same way as the ordinary junk. Such a scheme might be feasible for six or seven months in the year, and might even be carried on to a limited extent during high water, the passage being thereby quickened and greater regularity and security obtained. That it would serve to lower the present high level of charges, however, appears to me to be extremely problematical.

It will be seen, then, that I hold little hope of any great improvement being made in the navigability of the Yang-tsze, it being to future railways that we must look, in my opinion, rather than to the taming of the river for improvement in the means of communication in this part of the world. However unwilling we may be to admit it, any material improvement on the present system of navigation is unquestionably beyond the range of present probability, and the same system in which "the annual loss of life, in