1 66 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



Christians and of their priests would have been sacrificed, 

 had the latter not consented at the last moment to grant 

 the request of the officials, and accept another equally 

 valuable, but less conspicuous and F^ng-shui-disturbing site 

 on lower ground. 



In 1885 there was another rising in Chung-king, due this 

 time to the action of the American Methodist mission. Not 

 content with the native building in which I found them, 

 this mission also had secured for itself a magnificent and 

 strikingly conspicuous site on the neck of the Chung-king 

 peninsula, and commanding the valleys of both rivers, upon 

 which to erect a more imposing edifice. The mob rose, 

 and the disturbance was only quelled after several lives had 

 been sacrificed. 



The movement on the river, too, is in harmony with its 

 surroundings. Favoured by a fine fresh up-river breeze, 

 the quaintly shaped junks, each with a single square-cut 

 bellying mainsail, make almost imperceptible progress 

 against the rapid stream. Though under sail, they are still 

 attached by an invisible thread to the shore, and a gang of 

 trackers, ascending and descending the rocky path along 

 the slope of the ravine, may just be traced about a quarter 

 of a mile ahead of each toiling craft. 



The amphitheatre of hills, which encircle the peninsula 

 on which Chung-king stands, and at the foot of which flows 

 the wide deep stream of the Yang-tse, are thickly sprinkled 

 with farmhouses and villages, distilleries and small manu- 

 factories. Unlike the hill-ranges which rise from the plains 

 of the lower river, stark and bare, shunned as a habitation 

 and unused for pasture, treeless and close-shorn by the 

 rapacious wood-cutters, treated as enemies, and looking 

 barren and forlorn in consequence ; — the Szechuen hills 

 are as freely and as fondly utilized as those surrounding a 



