32 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



Tung-ting Lake, avoiding the numerous bends and dangerous 

 sandbanks of the river proper. It is now a vast expanse of 

 sand, being entirely dry. At length, at seven p.m., after 

 making sixty li, say fifteen geographical miles, in five hours, 

 we moored for the night in a small channel between sand- 

 banks, at a, place called Shih Tao Tse, or Stone Headland. 



Tuesday, March \2)th. — Off at six a.m., the trackers pro- 

 ceeding gaily along the top of the high bank, here almost 

 perpendicular. The river narrowed perceptibly after passing 

 Chiang-kow (River's Mouth), a large straggling village on 

 the left bank, and with its clear shallow water forming a 

 marked contrast to the turbid whirling stream off Shasze. 

 The banks were covered with villages and fine trees, but 

 the plain behind is evidently still flooded in summer, the 

 great breach in the dyke, made by the gigantic flood of 1870, 

 being still unrepaired. At length, on reaching a small town 

 called Yung-tse, we caught the first sight of the Western 

 mountains, and were glad to realize that the dismal plain of 

 Hu-Peh was at last coming to an end. A vertical section 

 of the bank, here cut by the river, showed the first departure 

 from the alluvial mud through which the river, with the 

 exception of its passage through the range above Kiukiang, 

 makes its way from here down to the sea, a distance of 800 

 miles. This section showed a stratum of two feet of gravel 

 beneath six feet of mud. Above Yung-tse and below the 

 big island of Pa-chow, or, as Blakiston has named it, Spring 

 Island, I noticed a junk's mast sticking out above the surface 

 in the middle of the stream, and I found that a large Hunan 

 junk, bound down from Ichang, and laden with Szechuan 

 produce, had run on to a bank here two days ago, and that, 

 two women of our Lao-ta's family had been drowned in her. 

 The survivors were encamped in some of the wreckage 

 on the adjacent bank. It is very uncomfortable on board, 



