518 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sharply outlined against a very blue sky. Sometimes the foothills 

 stretched to the river's brink, and the occasional cliffs thus formed bore 

 upon their tops graceful temples and pagodas, for in China the best 

 places and sites are always given over to temples and pagodas, if not 

 to graves. 



As we left Wuhu, we passed many lumbering rafts, some immense 

 ones with a draft of ten feet or more, carrying huts and food, live 

 stock (mostly pigs and chickens), etc., for some thirty or fifty people, 

 the families and assistants of the men who were bringing the lumber 

 to market. They went with the current, of course, but they managed 

 to keep clear of shallows, mud banks and rocks by the artful device of 

 sending out a small crew in a heavy skiff with a large anchor, from 

 which a hempen cable ran to the raft and was there made to wind up 

 on a stout capstan revolved by some twenty pairs of hands. By send- 

 ing this auxiliary anchor-boat to the proper point, both in direction 

 and in distance, they could, by winding up the cable, drag the raft even 

 athwart the very current of ' the yellow dragon,' the mighty Yangtsze. 



Though only thirty miles from Kiukiang to the White Deer Grotto, 

 it is a good two days' journey on foot and by chair across plains and 

 over hills of no mean height, for the route led us across the Lii Moun- 

 tains by way of Killing and the Nank'ang pass. Instead of arriving 

 at noon, as it should, our steamer reached Kiukiang at midnight, at 

 the end of a heavy rain; yet we decided to push right on across the 

 plains and to do our climbing in the cool of the early morning. Accord- 

 ingly, after much discussion with the coolies, who everywhere in China 

 wrangle vociferously over the terms of any bargain, we managed to get 

 four coolies for each chair, several torch bearers who carried long bam- 

 boo flare torches, and some three baggage coolies apiece, and our long 

 procession stalked across the rice fields, or rather between them, for they 

 were under water, across streams and along marshes, under a heavily 

 clouded yet at times moon-lit sky. As we went ahead we found the 

 chair coolies grumbling with the man who had bought the torches for 

 not getting enough, and on persistent inquiry we found that the fellow 

 had ' squeezed ' half of the Mexican dollar we had given him for 

 torches, and had bought only fifty cents' worth. Barring a few 

 stumbles and one spill, however, we succeeded in arriving safely at the 

 half-way house among the foothills at 4:30 a.m. After a short rest and 

 a cold bite, we started on foot to climb the steep ascent to Killing 

 Valley. We went up slope after slope, one long stretch having some 

 two thousand steps, getting, as the fuller light of day began to dawn, 

 magnificent views of the plains across which we had come in the dark 

 and of the Yangtsze curving in a great S beyond. In some places the 

 drop off the side of the path, which in many sections was paved with 

 large granite blocks, was quite sheer and a fall would have plunged one 



