A Chinese Boarding-school 229 



The men rise at earliest dawn, now fiye o'clock, clear 

 away the mats, which are stowed on the deck-houses aft, 

 and are served with their hot breakfast before getting under 

 way. Half an hour afterwards we entered on the " Wen- 

 tang hsia," or " Warm pool gorge," which opens on the long 

 reach of Mutung. This is one of the long reaches which 

 run parallel with the prevailing ranges, that is, south-west 

 and north-east. The river flows in a steep ravine, and urges 

 its way by numerous channels through a maze of rocks, now 

 rising some fifteen feet above the water, but in summer 

 entirely covered, at which time the navigation is attended 

 with no little danger. At this season the main channel is 

 plainly marked, and is of ample width, nowhere less than 

 a hundred yards ; but seen end on from the low deck, and 

 foreshortened, the maze appears at first sight impassable. 

 This reach ends in the rapid of the Double Dragon (" Soang 

 lung tan"), and brings us to the industrious mat-making 

 village of " Lo chi," so named from a dangerous rock opposite, 

 the " Lo chi," or " Dripping Stone." We passed Lo chi at 

 8.30, and at 9.15 arrived in the " Shan-pei t'o," or " Fan back 

 reach," having made, according to the native itinerary, 

 thirty li, or eight miles in three-quarters of an hour — the 

 real distance being probably five miles. The "Shan pei 

 t'o " is behind the " Fan rock," and facing it is the " Fan 

 cliff," a nasty point for upward-bound junks to round ; below 

 this, on the south bank, is the " Koan yin miau," one of the 

 numerous temples to the Goddess of Mercy that one finds 

 scattered throughout the empire, and especially in the south ; 

 then past the " San kiang tsao," or " Race of the three rivers," 

 to the picturesque old city of " Chang sho" ("longevity"). 

 Here one of my companions, a native of Chung-king, in- 

 formed me he had been two years at a boarding-school, the 

 first time I ever heard pf the existence of such an institution 



