Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/331

 until they reached the bold lights and shadows of the rocky foreground.

The officers of a gunboat stationed at the boundary which parts the provinces of Hupeh and Szechuan, warned us to be- ware of pirates, and they had good reason for so doing. We came to anchor at a place where the rocks, towering overhead, wrapped the scene in darkness; and it was nearly 10 p.m. when our skipper sent to say we had better have our arms ready, as pirates were prowling about. One boat had just passed noise- lessly up alongside, and its occupants were talking in whispers. We hailed them, but they made no reply, so then we fired over their heads. Our fire was responded to by a flash and a report from some men on the bank not far off. After this we kept a watch all night, and at about two in the morning were all roused again to challenge a boat's crew that was noiselessly stealing down on our quarters. A second time we were forced to fire, and the sharp ping of the rifle-ball on the rocks had the effect of deterring further advances from our invisible foes. The disturbers of our repose must have been thoroughly acquaint- ed with this part of the river, for even by day it is somewhat dark, and at night it is so utterly without light that no trading- boat would venture an inch from her rock-bound moorings. On another night in this gorge, I was summoned by my boy, who appeared in the cabin with a face of blank terror, and told me that he had just seen a group of luminous spirits that were haunting the pass. It was evident that something unusual had occurred, as I had never before seen the boy in such a state of clammy fear; so we followed him on to the deck, and looking up the precipice, about eight hundred feet above our heads, we then saw three lights on the face of the rock, performing a series of the most extraordinary evolutions. My old attendant