Loch Fan and the Coal Gorge 131 



is more open ; the hills are from three to six hundred feet 

 Tiigh, cultivated to the summit with the poppy, and backed 

 by higher ranges, steep, with the precipitous peaks well- 

 wooded. We nooned at Lo-chi, a large village built on a 

 wide and steep boulder-heap, and remarkable for its mat 

 industry, the shore being lined with booths in which the 

 manufacture of the large, neat, double-plaited bamboo 

 matting, used for junk housing and also for the walls and 

 roofs of dwellings, was being carried on. The men's 

 midday meal over, we continued under sail with a true fair 

 wind, against a moderate current of not more than two 

 knots, through the " Shan-pei To " (" Fan Loch"), a lake-like 

 expanse five miles long and a mile wide. We thence threaded 

 our way through an archipelago of rock islands, the left 

 bank being precipitous and only cultivated in patches, the 

 right bank hilly, and having at its foot an extensive embank- 

 ment between it and the river. Like those scattered 

 throughout the river-bed all the way from Kwei-fu upwards, 

 these rock islands are of the same height, now twenty to thirty 

 feet out of water, precipitous, and level-topped, and generally 

 bare, being all under water in summer ; but those in the 

 Shan-pei To had a more pleasing aspect, their tops being 

 green with moss and scattered grass patches. . 



Turning sharp round to the right, we passed through a 

 short, narrow gorge, called the " Coal Gorge," with precipitous 

 peaks a thousand to twelve hundred feet high on the right 

 bank, and entered the expanse of the Lu-tsz' T'o. This was 

 filled with piles of boulders of all colours, and about the size 

 of ostrich eggs, rising some twenty feet above the river, and 

 with sides so steep that in tracking along them our boat 

 almost rubbed against the pile while still travelling in deep 

 water. We continued for two hours after dark, until eight 

 p.m., cautiously feeling our way, and occasionally bumping 



