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 and towers of a citadel. The inhabitants of this sterile region must have a severe struggle for existence, but they are a hardy and independent race, scorning the mendicant tricks of their more abject fellow-countrymen in the plains. Thus I only fell in with a single beggar in these mountain passes. Our men slept on deck in the open air, and I was always afraid lest I should find some of them dead in the morning, for the cold was intense during the night. But they huddled themselves together beneath the awning of matting, and thus managed to keep the night air from freezing their blood. Near the upper end of the gorge the huts were of a better class ; the soil improved and small orchards came into sight, displaying a profusion of plum-blossoms even at this season of the year.

We were compelled to spend half a day at a place called Kwang-loong-Miau, that the crew might celebrate the Chinese New Year. The festival was conducted at the village shrine, which stood on a picturesque spot surrounded with pine and backed by a mountain 2,000 feet high. Chang had here a dispute with the boatmen, who, as he protested, had sullied his honourable name. He complained of their riotous, drunken conduct; but I soon found that our venerated inter- preter was himself not without sin, and was indeed unable to stand erect. He suggested that the chief offenders ought to be taken before the nearest magistrate.

In truth they made a great uproar during the night, firing crackers, quarreUing, and gambling; but next morning they were once more ready for work, though some of them had sold a portion of what little they had in the shape of clothing, to give the new year a fair start, and looked all the more savage for the change. They soon got heated, as we had cleared the first gorge and were now ascending a rapid. It was the first,