74 Throtigh the Yang-tse Gorges 



boat reek with opium fumes every night from seven to nine 

 p.m., while the rest of the men are fast asleep, after their hard 

 day's toil. He tells me he has smoked one mace (about 

 90 grains) daily for the last ten years ; but the native drug 

 is milder than the imported, which may account for the fact 

 of his health being apparently not injured in the slightest 

 degree by the habit. He is thirty-one years of age, and looks 

 much younger. Like nearly all the trackers, his naked body 

 is entirely covered with itch sores, which do not appear to 

 incommode him in the least. 



The mountains here rise to between 2000 and 3000 feet, 

 but glimpses of higher peaks behind are occasionally caught 

 through a break in the walls, where a tiny affluent has cut 

 out a narrow side glen. Two such glens, which open into 

 the gorge on either bank, form the boundary-line between 

 the provinces of Hu-peh and Szechuan, which we passed at 

 four o'clock. A wilder spot could hardly be imagined. 

 The gorge is not over 500 yards wide; the cliffs, about 700 

 feet, with lofty peaks behind. A solemn stilbiess reigns, 

 only disturbed by the splash of our oars as we advance 

 slowly, first on one side, then on the other, as we take 

 advantage of the eddies crawling past the projecting 

 points where the stream runs strong. One feels at times 

 the loneliness! of the ocean, and, as at sea, should anything 

 happen to the frail craft, the best swimmer would fail to 

 make a landing. The rocks are still limestone, with super- 

 incumbent sandstone ; and where the softer rock has been 

 washed away, the hard limestone forms a colossal terrace to 

 the cliffs above. This lower terrace is fluted along its water- 

 face. Perpendicular pot-holes have been bored right down 

 through it, and the outer walls having been broken through, 

 this curious fluted surface is the result. In more than one 

 place, at several hundred feet above the water-level, I 



