The Summer Rise 53 



description must be carefully understood only to apply to 

 the day upon which it was written. 



In summer, when the river rises sixty to one hundred feet 

 and more above the lowest level, which occurs in February, 

 the volume of water covers up the rocks, and in lieu of 

 smart local rapids interspersed with long stretches of com- 

 paratively still water, we find a continuous whirling torrent 

 running about six knots. Now, in March, the river had 

 only risen a few feet, and I saw it, for the first time, under 

 its winter aspect. At this period the navigation is safer for 

 junks, which crawl along the shore, often bumping against 

 the rocks as they go, while steamers, to whom the current in 

 itself would prove no obstacle, would necessarily be run 

 more easily in the high-water period. 



We weighed again at daybreak. After a cup of coffee, 

 I went ashore and observed the quarrymen at work ; the 

 limestone, which is extensively used in the plains for build- 

 ing and for facing embankments, coming largely from the 

 Ichang Gorge. No explosives are used, the blocks of stone 

 being separated by rows of iron wedges. Passing these 

 quarries, the river takes an abrupt right-angled turn, and on 

 rounding the sharp precipitous corner, a fresh scene of 

 beauty opens out. This turn of the gorge is known locally 

 as the " Teng ying tse " hsia, or gorge of the " Lamp-shine ; " 

 the lower reach, called by us foreigners the Ichang Gorge, 

 being known to the Chinese as the " Hoang mao " hsia, 

 or "Yellow cat" gorge, from the supposed resemblance 

 of one of the worn limestone rocks to this animal. In 

 this gorge the right bank rises again in limestone cliffs, 

 their summits crowned with weathered rocks, looking 

 positively like the walls and battlements of impregnable 

 mountain castles. The left bank, less precipitous, affords 

 room for picturesque villages on its receding ledges, 



