Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. III.pdf/56

 our help, but he made signs to us to go away. Next morning, we ascended a smaller rapid (see No. 37), just below the great rapid of Tsing-tan, at the mouth of the Mi-tan Gorge. As the Tsing-tan Rapid would present the greatest obstacle to steamers, I have made it the subject of two plates, (Plate XXI. No. 48 and Plate XXII. No. 49). In the first of these we have a general view of the entrance to the pass, and of the position of the village of Tsing-tan. The rapid is just below the village, and above the point at which our boat is seen under sail. The small boat, with two men on board, is one of the life boats always in attendance below the rapid. It is customary for the Chinese traders to unship their cargoes below, and have them transported overland to the smooth water above; there they reload their vessels; and this precaution they take, not because the channel is too shallow, but in order that the boats may have less weight on them when ascending or descending the rapids. No. 49 is an instantaneous photograph of the rapid, taken from the village above. It was obtained, I may add, under the most trying circumstances; for the villagers, who had never seen any such devilry as manufacturing pictures without a pencil, had thought fit to pelt me with missiles, and I narrowly escaped a stroke from an oar, as I took refuge in my boat. In vain Chang reasoned with the mob; we quietly secured the photograph, pocketed the insult and decamped. My two companions were all the while in their boat on the other side, preparing for the ascent of the stream. No doubt some of these villagers had heard the popular fiction that mystic pictures such as mine were made out of the eyes of Chinese babes. This rapid is one of the grandest spectacles in the whole panorama of the Upper Yangtsze. The water presents a smooih surface as it emerges from the pass. Suddenly it seems to bend like a polished cylinder of glass, falls eight or ten feet, and then, curving upwards in a glorious crest of foam, it surges away in wild tumult down the river. At this season sundry sunken rocks enhance the perils of shooting this rapid. On our way down we persuaded Chang to come into the boat with us; but as the vessel plunged and groaned in an agony of straining timbers, he became perfectly sick with panic fear. The inhabitants of Tsing-tan all make a living in some way out of the rapid. A few are pilots, the rest trackers, and besides all this there are many wrecks which help them to get along. We had here to hire fifty trackers, to aid in towing our boat up stream. The speed of this rapid was estimated at about eight knots, but I see no reason why the kind of steamer which lilakistow has suggested should not navigate this, and indeed, any of the rapids on the Yangtsze, the steam power to be detached, and made available either for towing the vessel up or for retarding her in swift and hazardous descents. Were the river open to steam navigation and foreign trade, daring and scientific skill would be forthcoming to accomplish the end in view,

We made fast for the night at the small town of Kwei, in Hupeh. This is built on sloping ground beneath the cliffs, on the left bank of the river. It was puzzling to imagine on what the people can subsist. There were no cultivated lands, no boats, nor signs of any sort of trade; the only being we encountered was a solitary beggar, and he was anxious to depart from Kwei. There are a number of coal mines near Patung, and in the rocks where the coalbeds are found the limestone strata have been thrown up from the stream in nearly perpendicular walls. The coal is slid down from the pit's mouth to a depot close to the water's edge, along grooves cut for that purpose on the face of the rock. The exact appearance of the entrance to one of these mines will be gathered from Plate XIX. No. 42.