28o Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



on in deep water ; she would find the rapids smoothed over 

 and practically non-existent. The main junk traffic is in 

 winter, when the rapids are at their worst ; but, when towing 

 in the intervening reaches, is easier, and the prevailing 

 north-east monsoon provides a steady up-river breeze. The 

 gorges are almost impassable to junks in summer, owing to 

 the absence of towing-paths past the overhanging precipices, 

 and the prevalence of calms. In a light passenger junk last 

 summer, some friends of ours were just two months in 

 covering the five hundred miles from Ichang to Chung-king. 

 What with the loss in time, the often total loss of goods, 

 the water damage which scarce a single junk escapes, the 

 risk to life and limb, the loss in interest and the absence of 

 insurance, the wonder is, not that the trade is no greater, 

 but that it exists at all. A well-managed line of steamers 

 on this grand but dangerous river will be as great a boon 

 to the Chinese as it is a bugbear to the officials, with whose 

 " squeezes " it threatens to interfere. 



A large heterogeneous crowd is now collected round the 

 banks of the New Rapid, engaged in the portage round the 

 falls, and in road-making, etc. There must be at least ten 

 thousand people squatting in the villages of wooden shanties 

 and straw huts, which have been rapidly run up, and will all 

 have to be removed as the river rises, and again replaced in 

 winter. The movement is something extraordinary ; crowds 

 of coolies, soldiers, sailors, innkeepers, passengers, carrying 

 their valuables round the rapid and struggling under their 

 burdens, remind one of a fair and the traffic at a big railway- 

 station combined. To keep all this population in order, 

 to settle disputes, arrest thieves and order the traffic, which 

 Chinese officials do in a rough-and-ready but practical way, 

 a Deputy. Magistrate has been appointed from Yun-yang; he 



