Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. III.pdf/52

 friend put them in good humour by purchasing a stock of cakes from an old man, which he distributed among the children in the crowd. The old man looked as if he had dressed himself in an ancient bed quilt, and glazed it waterproof by a surface coating of dirt. Our writer Chang announced that he was suffering from a severe cold, and sent one of the crew ashore to purchase a bottle of wine. It was instructive to notice the way in which he gave the order : while still inside the cabin he carefully counted the cash which his purse contained; and then, stepping out, handed it to the man with an air of perfect trust, remarking as he did so. " I do not know its contents; take what you require, and replace the balance." It contained in reality about sixpence.

On the 29th we had a visit from two Hunan custom-house officials; we also noted two cotton-laden junks ashore, at a place where the stream was apparently running with a five-knot current. Next day we found the banks dotted with huts made of pine-branches and millet-stalks; they reminded me of the pine-raft huts which I had seen below the Tung-Ting Lake, bound down to Hankow, but which I omitted to notice in the proper place. These rafts are of enormous size, and not unfrequently carry a small village on their decks. These villages are lifted on to the bank at Hankow, and there the wood is piled up for sale. About noon on the 318t, at She-show-hien, we passed a dangerous sand-spit, shooting out from the low land opposite the town. Here we bought two fish, one like a salmon, and the other of a kind which Captain Blakistow has already described. This fish has a long sword above its wide and toothless mouth, and it is said to employ that weapon for dislodging its finny prey from the mud, the wide mouth being at the same time brought into use as a trap. Its length, from the extremity of the sword to the tip of the tail, was four feet two inches, the sword being fourteen inches long. The belly was white, the tail and fins white and red. The back and head were slate-colour. She-show-hien, a town in itself of little commercial importance, formed one of the strongholds of the Taipings, by whom it was left partly in ruins. The place is surrounded by the first important hill-ranges we have seen since we had quitted Hankow.

We reached the great trading mart, Sha-si, about three hundred miles above Hankow, at one o'clock on Feb. 2nd. Here the river is one and a-half miles broad, and presents a splendid unobstructed channel. The town is on the left bank, in one of the finest reaches of the Yangtsze, and the lower river steamers would find an ample depth of water for anchoring close in-shore. An eligible site for a foreign settlement, beyond reach of the floods, and clear of the native population, might be found on a hill on the right bank, on the opposite side to the town. There is also another site lower in position, and below the city, which would probably be more advantageous for the purposes of trade. It was difficult to buy coal here, although we knew that it existed in great quantities in Hunan. Mines are, indeed, to be met with at Tsang-yang-hien, a few miles above Sha-si, and the coal there is good in quality; but hitherto it has been little in demand. Coal is also worked at Pa-tong-hien and Wu-shan-hien in the gorges above I-Chang; but except where made into fuel, which they cast in moulds, it is only sparingly in use.

We were now entering the mountain region of the Upper Yangtsze, and we could see in the distance the dim outline of what Blakistow calls the » Mountains of the Seven Gates," which rise about three thousand feet