Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. III.pdf/54

 There are two or three unoccupied sites at I-Chang which are adapted for a foreign settlement. Building materials are also to be had in great variety and abundance. As to the steam navigation of the river up to this point, I have no hesitation in saying that small boats of light draught could reach I -Chang without difficulty, even when the waters are at their lowest, while during summer the steamers which now ply on the Lower Yangtsze would meet no obstacles greater than those they have already to surmount between Shanghai and Hankow.

We left our Hankow boats at I -Chang to await our return from the gorges, and hired a suitable rapid boat to carry us to Kwei-chow-fu, in Szechuan. Our new crew consisted of twenty-four wiry-looking fellows, men accustomed to the dangers of the gorges, and to the poor fare and hard work to be encountered there.

We left this inland port on the 7th Feb., and in a few hours afterwards had entered the mouth of I-Chang Gorge, fourteen miles above the city. This rocky defile presents a spectacle in imposing contrast to the level plains through which wc had been journeying for so many hundred miles. The mountains here vary in height from 500 to 2,500 feet, and the Great River flows through a narrow cleft, in some places not more than a hundred yards across. The channel is everywhere deep and clear, gloomily overshadowed by the rocky walls which frown in gigantic precipices on both sides of the stream, and not unfrequently darkened with still greater intensity by a lowering sky. Rude fisher-huts, perched here and there upon the lofty cliffs, afford the only evidence of the presence of man. A few miles further on we came upon several houses of a better class, surrounded by patches of orchard ground. The inhabitants here obtain a livelihood by selling the produce of their gardens to the passing boats. To these more civilized dwellings there succeeded abodes of a most primitive type — cave hovels, closed in front with a bamboo partition, and fitted with doorways of the same material (sec Plate XVIII. No. 36). These cabins were erected in the most inaccessible positions beneath overhanging cliffs, and their smoke-begrimed interiors reminded me of the ancient cave dwellings which sheltered our forefathers at Wemyss Bay in Scotland. It is in just such desolate spots as these that the frugality and industry of the Chinese race are most conspicuously exhibited. A number of the hardy natives live by fishing, while others arc engaged in the stone-quarries close by; and wherever it is at all possible, the thin soil on the face of the rocks is scraped and planted, and vegetables, tended with ceaseless care, grow up there and mature. This is indeed taking bread out of a stone. It is here that the stone used for building and for embankments lower down the river is found in greatest abundance; and I was interested to note how, by the action of the water on the rocks, the softer fugitive particles had been washed away, leaving strange grottoes and caverns with grotesque columns to support the superincumbent masses.

A snowfall on the 8th mantled the mountain tops in white, but in the gorge took the shape of a refreshing shower, and brought out the bright hues of the plum-blossom, in an orchard hard by where we had made fast for the night. At this spot the river gave no soundings with ten fathoms of line. It was now the first night of the Chinese New Year, and the boatmen accordingly apprised us of their intention to spend the afternoon at the village of Kwang-loong-Miau, on the right bank of the river. This hamlet is surrounded with pine, and backed by a mountain 2,000 feet in height. A number of our crew proceeded to a temple to make