Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/327

 wrecks that strew the shore, from the Ufe-boats in constant attendance, or from the fact that the Chinese unload their boats at the head of the rapid, and have their cargo and themselves transported overland to the smooth waters below.

This Tsing-tan rapid, then, is the greatest obstacle to the steam navigation of the Upper Yangtsze. We had to hire fifty trackers from the village to aid our men in hauling the boat up the stream, which here ran about eight knots an hour; but I see no reason why the kind of steamer Captain Blakiston has suggested should not navigate this, and indeed any of the other rapids on the river, the steam power to be capable of either towing the vessel up, or retarding her swift and hazardous descent. Were the river once opened to steam, daring and scientific skill would be forthcoming to accomplish the end in view.

The mountains of this gorge are on the same stupendous scale as those of the Lukan passage below. On the nth we reached a small walled town called Kwei, with not a single craft nor a human being near it to betoken trade of any kind. Here we halted for the night, and in the morning visited some coal mines at a place called Patung, where the limestone strata in which the coal is formed, stand up in nearly perpendicular walls against the edge of the river. Adits had been carried into the face of the rock, but they were all of them on an exceedingly small scale — simple burrowings without any depth. No shafts were sunk, and no ventilation was attempted. Coal abounds, and even with such rude appliances as the miners possess, is turned out in considerable quantities; but the quality is not so good as some we got further up the gorge. The miner when at work, carries a lamp stuck in his cap, much the same as those in use with us before Sir H. Davy's invention. The coal