Manufacture of Salt 85 



three-fourths of the river's bed, is the colony of salt-boileries. 

 The brine is collected in pits dug in the sand, and then 

 evaporated with the native hard coal. It is the only place 

 in China that I have seen present (in the distance) a faint 

 resemblance to a manufacturing town, due to the quantity 

 of escaping steam. Rounding this bank, which will be deep 

 under water again in a few weeks' time, and a huge boulder 

 flat beyond, we at length bring up under the walls of Kwei- 

 chow, and our seven days' voyage through the gorges proper 

 is at an end. So many exciting incidents have occurred in 

 this week that it seems to be more than a month since I 

 started from Ichang. 



Kwei-chow-fu (commonly called Kwei-fu, to distinguish 

 it from Kwei-chow in Hu-peh, which I have described 

 above) is a fine city, picturesquely situated on a bold slope, 

 and is surrounded by high, crenellated walls, with turreted 

 gateways, and four tiers of stone bunding on the river-front 

 below, all in an unusually good state of preservation. 

 Built out of the reach of the summer floods, the foundations 

 of its walls are a good hundred feet above our boat, and 

 the wide sandy slope between is green and yellow with 

 wheat and rape-seed, the latter now in flower, and which 

 will shortly all be reaped before the water rises. At the foot 

 of the bank, and along the water's edge, is the usual winter 

 street of temporary, mud-plastered houses, with opium-booths, 

 tea, and other shops, for the needs of the boat population. 

 In one is a fearful din of gongs and drums going on, making 

 night hideous as I write, which I am informed is a grand 

 " chin-chin joss pigeon," a favourite function for the benefit 

 of one of the inmates reported sick unto death. 



Five miles below Kwei-fu, perched up on the cliff that 

 forms the- left portal of the Bellows Gorge — M^ng-liang's 

 Cliff forming the right portal, going down-stream — is a fine 



