234 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



here, our pilot had unconsciously followed the instructions 

 given in Admiral Ho's recently published itinerary, who, in 

 speaking of this place, writes, " Upon arriving at Li cheng 

 yuen, when the water is high, this is a good place to moor ; 

 should an up-wind be met with, sudden and fierce as a herd 

 of swine, this is the time to stop ; if the Fu-chow small river 

 is in flood, it is usually impossible to proceed. At low-water 

 time, with an up-river wind, it is also right to stop here and 

 avoid it." 



We landed and walked along the rocky shore to the city. 

 We found the people in the suburb below the walls busily 

 engaged in removing their houses out of the reach of the 

 stealthily approaching flood. Entering a huge bamboo- 

 walled godown, from which we observed steam to be issuing, 

 we found that the building was one of the Government salt 

 depots, from which all the salt bales had been removed, and 

 that the frugal-minded godown-keepers were now boiling 

 down the sweepings and the upper stratum of the earthen 

 floor and evaporating from them a fine jet-coloured salt. 

 So valuable does the Government monopoly render this 

 indispensable and usually cheap article, that although pro- 

 • duced in the immediate neighbourhood, and even, as we saw 

 on the way up, in the river-bed itself, salt is retailed in 

 Szechuan at fifty cash a catty, equal to twopence a pound. 

 In Hankow, situated midway between the " salina " of Yang- 

 chow and the salt-wells of Szechuan, the price has risen to 

 eighty cash, while descending the river still farther to 

 Shanghai, which derives its supply from the neighbouring 

 Chusan Islands, where, with the enormous junk trade, 

 smuggling largely prevails, we find the price fallen to twenty- 

 eight cash, or little over a penny per pound. On the other 

 hand, in districts comparatively remote from the main lines of 

 communication, and where the small traflSc is not conducive 



