82 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



2O0O feet, have been clean eut by the river, which here 

 flows directly athwart the mountain range. Where side 

 ravines break through the walls, we have piles of broken 

 rocks forming points on alternate sides of the river, round 

 which the current rushes in alternate rapids and whirlpools. 

 At one rapid, called " T'o tu tze," the eddy ran up and 

 broke over the rocks with the same force as the rapid 

 proper, into which it shot us with a jerk that showed the 

 wisdom of the Lao-ta in having sent five men ashore with 

 two separate tow-ropes, leaving two men upon the deck 

 forward to promptly sweep her head round to the current 

 with the bow sweep. Here lay two big junks — their cargoes 

 of raw cotton neatly housed on shore under a tent made of 

 the sails and mat covers — hove down on the beach, having 

 their bottoms replanked, both having come to grief at this 

 spot while towing up to Chung-king. Another of the red 

 life-boats, each of which has a crew of four men, was patrol- 

 ling round this rapid. We afterwards passed the " Yo sha 

 Chi " race, the " Likwei Tan " rapid, and the " Hu-shu-tse," 

 or Tiger's Beard, the rapid being so named from a dangerous 

 rock in its midst, round which the current rushed in a circle, 

 as with water twirled round a washing-basin. The last and 

 most troublesome rapid is formed by a boulder spit, due to 

 an affluent on the right bank, in the angle of which, high up 

 the mountain side, stands the picturesque village of " Ta- 

 chi kou," celebrated as the residence of several retired 

 " armateurs " or junk-owners, who, our Lao-ta informs me, 

 wisely retired before the present wretched times afflicted the 

 transport business. 



The spit at its mouth dams up the water in the deep 

 reservoir of the Feng-hsiang Gorge, and we hung fire in the 

 current formed by the overflow, our five trackers clinging, 

 on their hands and feet, to the jagged rocks as they pulle4 



