78 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



end of the gorge, with the welcome sight of Wu-shan city in 

 the distance, where we landed in the afternoon. I am 

 getting positively weary of the endless rapids, especially as, 

 being two men short — a second having succumbed to his 

 accident at the Yeh-tan — we are decidedly undermanned; and 

 this day's whole progress was a hard but gallant struggle, in 

 which one would gladly have taken part, but which was 

 almost painful to witness in inaction. The current in this, 

 the upper end of the Witch's Gorge, runs fully five knots, 

 and the crew had to claw us along under the cliffs with 

 small hooks attached to the end of long bamboos. In one 

 or two places they managed to track us short distances, 

 crawling over almost inaccessible rocks. Crossing one bay 

 cut out by a whirlpool, we took in the tow-rope, leaving the 

 trackers to walk round, while the one man left on board 

 besides the helmsman rowed the boat slowly up the eddy, 

 intending to throw the line out again, to be caught by the 

 trackers just below the rapid. He miscalculated the direc- 

 tion, and the boat's nose, caught by the descending " race," 

 was turned sharply round, and we went flying back, as at the 

 Yeh-tan. But here there was no danger. As we were not 

 attached to the tow-line, the boat took no sheer, and, after 

 half an hour's delay, we got back again into the returning 

 eddy, and then rounded the point successfully. Although 

 many of these whirlpools are a quarter of a mile in diameter, 

 and have a deep depression in the centre, there is, where no 

 rocks obstruct, Httle danger, the flat bottom and light draft 

 and great beam of the junks giving the water little hold 

 upon them. Still, I cannot say, with Mr. Donald Spence, 

 that with the rapids familiarity breeds contempt, for I find 

 the long, ceaseless struggle with them beginning to tell upon 

 the nerves. Probably Mr. Spence never tried them in a 

 shen-po-tse, i.e. a small sailing-boat, such as I am nO;W in. 



