2 74 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



the rapid when we passed, the cargo on which may be roughly 

 valued at ^800,000." 



The landslip took place on the nights of the 28th and 29th 

 of September, 1896. The river valley is here three to four 

 miles wide, and is bounded by precipitous mountains 

 rising to about twelve hundred feet; between these and 

 the present river-bed lie undulating foot-hills, formed in 

 ancient times from the detritus of the cliffs behind ; these 

 rise to a height of three to four hundred feet, and are a 

 pleasing feature in the foreground as one travels up the 

 Great River ; the land is very fertile, and is covered with 

 farmhouses, and villages nestled in woods of walnut and fruit- 

 trees, interspersed with bamboo groves, while vari-coloured 

 crops cover the slopes and the wide-spreading banian adorns 

 the summits. The river bottom is composed of a hard grey 

 sandstone in which the river has scooped out a gigantic ditch 

 which forms the channel of the stream at low water. At the 

 time of high water, during the summer floods, this ditch is 

 obliterated ; its rock walls, now rising sixty feet above the 

 water, are all submerged in twenty or thirty feet of water, 

 and the width and volume of the river are increased tenfold. 

 It was over this rock-edge that the slide of foot-hills which 

 broke bodily away from the vertical cliffs of its parent 

 mountain, poured its mass of detritus, comprising large 

 angular fragments of hard sandstone rock, with intervening 

 stiff clay, into the bay which formerly occupied the spot, 

 building up a lofty projecting spit which suddenly narrowed 

 the river from about four hundred to one hundred and 

 fifty yards; in one night converting a tranquil reach into 

 a furious rapid, with a fall of ten feet in the distance 

 of one hundred yards. A reef of now (February) half- 



