SIII-rO-CIIIA 165 



I saw snow still lying on the sides of the steep hills at 

 the back of the town. The river was now at its lowest, 

 and when in that state the Ta-tung Rapid is not 

 dangerous. 



After leaving Quei-chow-fu I was suspicious of two 

 of the men of my crew, my l^oat having been, I thought, 

 maliciously put upon a rock. One of them was the 

 pilot, and I noticed that he frequently had disagree- 

 ments with the lowban. I got rid of both of them at 

 an early opportunity. The boat, however, was damaged, 

 and next morning the water was above the cabin floor. 

 She was soon baled out, the leak discovered and tem- 

 porarily stopped, permanent repairs being made at 

 Yeng-yang-hsien. No serious damage was done, but 

 the delay was annoying. 



At Shi-po-chia there is a very curious pagoda, 

 which, instead of being built as usual on the top of 

 a hill, is constructed against an enormous isolated 

 hmestone rock about 400 yards from the river bank, 

 where it forms a very conspicuous object, tlie top of the 

 pagoda appearing just above the rock. 



Chung-king was reached on March 12, and I waited 

 till the 17th, Mr. Cockburn very kindly inviting me to 

 stay with him. Here I had to change my trackers and 

 get an up-river crew. I also sent a collector from here 

 to Quei-chau, a poor but interesting province about 



