278 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



city, and roiinding the point which opens up this wide reach, 

 we could have imagined ourselves entering some wide fiord 

 with a picturesque landlocked harbour crowded with traffic. 

 Gangs of heavily laden coolies were groaning under bales of 

 yarn and Manchester goods as they laboured along, up and 

 down the steep improvised paths over the rocks on either 

 shore. The rapid was at its fiercest, and the huge breakers 

 below the smooth tongue reminded- one forcibly of the rapids 

 of the Niagara river below the falls. But now, at last, serious 

 efforts were being made to effect a permanent cure in this 

 new obstruction. During the preceding summer, the Imperial 

 Maritime Customs had obtained the concurrence of the two 

 Viceroys concerned — Hu-peh and Szechuan — to the employ- 

 ment of dynamite, and we were delighted to find a deputation, 

 lent by Sir Robert Hart from the lighthouse service, hard at 

 work. This deputation consisted of Messrs. Tyler, Gray 

 Donald, and Myers, with some two thousand coolies working 

 under their directions. In the economical way in which 

 public works are carried out in impoverished China, these 

 gentlemen had a very limited sum placed at their disposal, 

 were short of dynamite and electric material, and supplied 

 only with inferior local made gunpowder. Yet much had been 

 already accomplished ; great excavations had been made in 

 the point which grows higher and higher, and wider, as the 

 work advances. Much of the mid-reef had been removed, 

 and with the dilris from the cutting away of the right 

 bank, a road was being built up for trackers under the 

 cliff that lines the south shore; but their job is far from 

 finished. 



Mr. Tyler, who had necessarily made a prolonged stay 

 on the spot, kindly furnished me with the following figures, 

 which are most valuable in enabling the reader to form an 



