Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/157

 The Gorges of the Lien-Chow River. 153.

been made and the requisite permission granted. Some- times the throng of boats is so great that a delay of many hours has to be endured, but usually, upon presentation of his passport, the foreigrier’s boat is allowed to go on its way without detention. Hom-kwong is a town of perhaps 20,000 people, who, on the advent ‘of foreigners, are curious to the extreme of rudeness, and are said to be rather quarrelsome among themselves, a proof of this being shown us as we passed up the river one day, and saw a number of men, in a house that projected over the water, in a state of great excitement, pelting a boat that passed beneath them with stones, while the boat people responded with whatever missile came nearest to hand. The Roman Catholics have a mission station here, and a considerable number of adherents. The American Preshy- terians have recently secured a place in which to begin work in the town. Within a radius of ten miles there are six or seven market towns, some of them of consider- able importance. The extensive plain, lying chiefly on the north side of the river, is given up to a great extent to the cultivation of sugar-cane, from which the sugar made is said to be of a superior quality.

Proceeding on our journey up the river, and ascending several rapids, we pass the market town of Sam-kong, and after ten miles’ travel enter the Wong-mau, or “Yellow Reed” Pass. Just below the pass, on the north side, is a striking group of hills; a dozen peaks or more of as many shapes clustering together, suggesting such names as “ Sugar Loaf,” “The Sphinx,” “The Lion Couchant,” etc., to characterise them, as they appear from different points of view. They are well worth half-a-day’s explora~