io6 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



which there is an unlimited demand throughout the empire 

 for the manufacture of spills, for the universal hubble-bubble, 

 as well as for the piles of paper " cash " burnt at tombs, 

 which are a speciality of this district. Many of the large 

 Szechuan junks which carry on the transit, over the rapids 

 are built here, of a tough cypress which grows plentifully on 

 all the hills hereabouts. The planking is only an inch thick, 

 and they are all clamped together in the usual way, the 

 object being to leave them "limber" and to combine 

 strength with lightness. A junk to carry 200 bales of 

 shirting up-stream — say, forty tons dead weight — costs here, 

 new, complete, a thousand strings of cash, or ;^iio. 



Distance, forty-five li (eleven miles) ; total from Ichang, 

 234 miles. 



