Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/333

 was satisfactory; but then we were on one side of the stream and our crew on the other. As there was a village near at hand, we at once repaired thither to engage a boat to convey our men across ; but not a soul would stir unless we paid them beforehand nearly as much as would buy another village, such as it was. We offered them what the boatmen considered a fair hire, but this they stedfastly refused; until at last we jumped into one of their boats, and threatened to use it ourselves. Seeing this, they thought better of it, apologised and struck a fair bargain. We came to, for that night, above the Wu-shan Gorge. Before us, on the left bank, lay the walled town of Wu-shan, surrounded by low hills and richly-tilled valleys; and here we noticed the outlet of a small river that joins the Yangtsze, and down which salt is brought in great quantities from mines at a place called Ta-ning.

Opium, silk and tea are among the chief products of this district, and it is also singularly rich in fruits of various sorts. We bought the most delicious oranges I ever tasted in China, for a shilling a hundred. Next day we made a strenuous though futile effort to reach Kwei-chow-fu ; but we could make no headway in the face of a storm that swept in fearful blasts down the gorge and filled the air with a fine blinding sand, most irritating to the eyes. We therefore left Szechuan on the 1 6th, after having ascended a distance of over thirteen hundred miles above Shanghai. The return voyage was comparatively easy, and eighteen days after leaving Szechuan we again set foot on the foreign settlement at Hankow. Here our friends received us with a hearty welcome, and plied us with the most minute enquiries as to the state of the river and the exact appearance of the proposed new treaty-port at Ichang.

At Hankow I rejoined some of my oldest friends in China,