Brine Wells 79 



The rapid opposite Wu-shan is due to the obstruction 

 caused by the moraine of a small affluent, navigable 180 li, 

 up to the district city of Ta-ling (Ta-ling Hsien), and through 

 this terminal moraine (if it may be so termed) the stream 

 has cut down a narrow channel. The district of Ta-ling 

 produces, from brine wells, the invaluable commodity, salt. 

 The brine is here evaporated by wood-fires, and not by 

 natural gas, as further west. The boats which bring down 

 the salt seem an exact copy of the Venetian gondola, with 

 their cocked-up sterns, stern-oar, and small mat-house amid- 

 ships. The boatmen are stark naked, and tanned copper 

 colour by the sun, having constantly to jump off into the 

 shallow water and either help the boat along, or else stop her 

 from grinding too rapidly over the shifting boulders. 



The cleft in the limestone hills, in which the long gorge 

 ends, opens suddenly out into a charming valley, the slopes 

 of which are cultivated halfway up with tallow-trees and 

 other sub-tropical fruits. The city itself is picturesquely 

 situated on the slope immediately facing the gorge, its walls 

 climbing halfway up the mountain from which it takes its 

 name. Crossing an extensive sand-flat not yet covered, I 

 ascended the steep, rocky bank, sixty or eighty feet high, 

 and entered the south gate, followed by a wondering but re- 

 spectful crowd. The little urchins ran on in front, shouting, 

 " Yang-jen ! " (Ocean-man or Foreigner) ; but no " Yang- 

 kwei-tse" (Foreign Devil) was heard any more from this 

 time forth. This opprobrious term, by which foreigners are 

 universally designated in the eastern provinces, is happily 

 unknown in Szechuan. I ascended the walls, the summit of 

 which forms the only available promenade in Chinese cities, 

 and looked down on the smiling valley of the " Siao-ho," or 

 Lesser River, as these affluents are similarly called at each 

 place, and walked on until where the wall begins to ascend 



