Kwei-choiv Fu 89 



that a certain proportion of the revenues thus collected at 

 the foreign customs is handed back to the provincial 

 governors; but the amount is nothing compared to the 

 revenues obtained by them when the taxation lay exclusively 

 in their hands. One thing is certain, viz. that, until some 

 arrangement is made more favourable to the local officials, 

 we shall never see mining and other enterprises willingly 

 thrown open to foreigners, and the illimitable resources of 

 this rich empire properly developed. The same obstacle 

 hinders the introduction of railways and all the other 

 elements of Western progress. 



Upon ascending the Kwei-chow bank, the mountains 

 behind the hills, that form the opposite shore, become 

 visible. The high peaks in the rear appeared to be of the 

 same white formation which puzzled me in the Ichang Gorge. 

 Like all the mountains bordering the river, they range from 

 two to three thousand feet, and the stream appears to have 

 forced its way through the hard limestone mountains in a 

 direction at right angles to their main axis. What has 

 determined the actual course of the river cutting its way 

 through such cliffs as that of the Bellows Gorge, which, as 

 seen from Kwei-chow, looks like a slit cut with a knife across 

 the mountain, it is difficult to say. This whole question of 

 the gorges would present a most interesting problem to a 

 competent geologist for study on the spot. Probably, when 

 the Szechuan basin was filled by a vast inland lake, the 

 water found an outlet to the sea by cutting its way down, in 

 the course of seons, through the rocks of least resistance. 



Distance (Lao-ta's reckoning, as usual), ninety-five li ; say, 

 twenty-four miles, making, in all, from Ichang to Kwei-chow, 

 146 miles. 



This total I believe to be nearer the mark than Blakiston's 

 estimate of 102 miles. I hardly think that Blakiston has 



