CHAPTER III 



THE FATHER OF RIVERS 



BEFORE leaving England George had cabled to 

 Dr. J. A. C. Smith, an experienced collector who 

 had accompanied the Duke of Bedford's Zoological 

 Expedition in 1910. He knew China well, and 

 talked the language like a native, having been in 

 charge of a hospital at Sian-fu for eight years as 

 a medical missionary. He was on the western 

 border of Kansu when the cable reached him, but 

 some hard travelling enabled him to reach the 

 coast before our arrival, and with his help we had, 

 in a few days, procured our stores, extracted our 

 possessions from the maw of custom-house officials, 

 and were ready to start. 



We left Shanghai at midnight, and awoke to 

 find ourselves on the broad, brown bosom of the 

 Yangtse-kiang the Son of the Ocean, the Father 

 of Rivers which, rising in the highlands of Thibet, 

 rolls its muddy waters for some three thousand 

 miles eastwards. With the exception of the Ama- 

 zon, it is navigable for a longer distance than any 

 river in the world. Even large battleships and 

 steamers, during the summer months when the 

 river is in flood, can reach Hankow, six hundred 

 miles from its mouth. Its breadth is so great that 



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