A New, Deserted City 123 



undertaking it, the natives say), he was incontinently 

 degraded ; but having disgorged a portion to the ofRcials of 

 the capital, he was permitted to retire, and the inhabitants 

 were ordered to rebuild their houses on the old site. Mean- 

 while, Ma has a monument which will ensure the handing 

 down of his name to all posterity. The walls of this unin- 

 habited city are splendidly built of the local sandstone, and 

 the inscriptions in the stone plaques, let in over the open 

 and deserted gateways, I could read with my field-glass, 

 although a mile distant. 



The view of the river from the T'ien tze Shan is not 

 unlike that of the entrance of the Niukan, or Ox-liver Gorge. 

 The stream seemed to lose itself behind a succession of lofty 

 points, backed by mountains of fifteen hundred to two 

 thousand feet, each range separated from the other by the 

 morning mist, in which the distant valleys were concealed, 

 the rich vegetation in the foreground, and the curved 

 temple-roofs peeping out behind the trees, adding to the 

 beauty of the scene. On passing up we found, in fact, the 

 banks very steep, clifF-like in many places, and strewn with 

 huge rocks, which render the navigation dangerous in 

 summer-time. 



Making another of the usual rectangular turns, this time 

 to the west, the river widens and flows between steep banks, 

 every available spot being carefully cultivated with the 

 poppy. We proceeded slowly past several small rapids, and 

 brought up under a steep sandbank, on which poppies were 

 growing almost to the water's edgej opposite the busy 

 market-town of Sheng-chi Chang, the river, including a 

 boulder-covered sandbank near the left shore, being fully 

 three-quarters of a mile wide. 



Distance run, seventy li (seventeen miles) ; from Ichang, 

 340 miles. 



