52 Through the Y.ang-tse Gorges 



most striking feature. The dark limestone strata being 

 disposed horizontally, and the cleavage being vertical, 

 account for the striking forms, the towers and buttresses, into 

 which the mountains have been cut up; the narrow side 

 glens, where small streams enter the river, are equally wall- 

 sided, and each turn in the valleys is a right angle. Vegeta- 

 tion, wherever a ledge affords room, is rich and abundant, 

 and the air in springtime is scented and the gloom enlivened 

 by the fruit-trees, now masses of blossom. 



The river no longer presented the pellucid appearance 

 v/hich had delighted me between Shasze and Ichang, the 

 spring freshet being of the usual thick muddy colour. 

 Nothing struck me more than the wild unfrequented aspect 

 of the reach as it opened out, there being apparently 

 nothing but a few isolated sampans to be seen in the whole 

 stretch of the water. As we advanced, however, these 

 seeming sampans turned out to be large junks of eighty to 

 one hundred tons, laden with Szechuan produce, and each 

 rowed by twenty up to sixty men, their masts lowered, as 

 always, for the downward trip, and their hulls dwarfed by the 

 colossal dimensions of the surrounding scenery to the size 

 of small boats. 



We passed picturesque little villages nestling in the glens 

 amidst miniature patches of wheat and the white blossoms 

 of the plum trees ; other glens were clefts, over the ledge of 

 which, some 150 feet above the river level, tumbled a crystal 

 waterfall. I wished to stop and fill up at one of these, but 

 my Chinaman declared spring water to be unwholesome, and, 

 as we have only one water-holder on board, I desisted. 

 Distance travelled, forty li, say ten miles. 



Monday, March igth. — Second day in the gorges. I 

 am careful to give the date of each day's notes, as the 

 river varies so wonderfully at different seasons that any 



