41 o Voyage of the Novara. 



with the utmost brilHancy the rays of the sun. A light- 

 ship moored to a sand-bank, and a wreck on another sand- 

 bank, are, after leaving Gutzlaff Island, the sole land-marks 

 by which the pilot can hope to keep the channel, which is only 

 from one to two miles wide in this vast shoreless river estuary. 

 Indeed the entrance of the Yang-tse-Kiang is regarded as 

 one of the most difficult feats for a large ship. With favour- 

 able wind and weather, the Novara cleared without accident 

 the 47 miles between the bar and the place where the 

 Wusung falls into the Yang-tse-Kiang, and on the evening 

 of the 26th July dropped anchor in front of Wusung. The 

 navigation presented little that was interesting, yet each man 

 involuntarily felt a thrill as he reflected that he was sailing 

 in the current of the longest river in China, whose source 

 lies thousands of miles inland at Khukkunor, among the 

 Mangolians. 



As we neared Wusung, signs of life began to be visible 

 on the river itself; tall three-masters were passing, bound in 

 or out, and scores of Chinese junks with their peculiar rig 

 and build. Far above the light-ship the shore first became 

 visible, low, flat, scarcely above the level of the river, but 

 green and fertile. A Pagoda of the well-known form of the 

 Porcelain tower of Nankin and a few lofty trees enable the 

 pilot to take the bearings of the channel at this point. Only 

 the land on the left is actual mainland, the shore on the 

 right being the coast of the island of Tsuning, lying at the 

 mouth of the river. At the mouth of the Wusung, this southern 



