292 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



blue-coated people, including the magistrate and his suite, 

 watched us steam by in silent astonishment, we steamed on 

 until, in the evening of the following day, we came upon the 

 rock-strewn rapids of the Niu-kou (ox head) and the Heng 

 liang (transverse ridge). We crept through these, running 

 up in the eddies; then meeting the down current, which 

 swept us back, we crossed rapidly to the opposite shore; 

 then on again in the next eddy, until we at last got safely 

 through. It was here, in the H6ng-liang-tze, that we saw 

 two large junks capsized : one had been towed ashore ; one 

 was floating on her side in the eddy as we passed up. Both 

 these junks had been tracking up in the eddy, when, upon 

 rounding the point and meeting the down current, they had 

 suddenly taken a sheer and gone over before there had been 

 time for the trackers to release the tow-lines. Warned by 

 their disaster we attempted, by careful steering, to bring our 

 stem head on to the current in good time; but, as it was, we 

 rolled gunnel under, and, had we been tracked, must have 

 infallibly capsized. Above these picturesque, but from the 

 navigator's point of view nasty, places, we entered the great 

 gorge of Wu-shan, Wu-shan-ta-hsia ; and here we thoroughly 

 enjoyed the triumph of steam, traversing its twenty miles, 

 with our heavy tows, in about five hours. This long gorge 

 is the crux of junk navigation, unless when a fair wind blows, 

 as the cliff walls defy tracking, and it is impossible to row 

 against the current : at its upper end is the city of Wu-shan, 

 where we moored for the night. The next day saw us 

 through the rapids of the " Kitten " and " Dismount from 

 your horse," until at dusk we moored at the foot of the 

 rapid which, at this season, flows over from the reservoir of 

 the Bellows Gorge with considerable violence. It was here 

 that, while steering inshore amidst the rocks, to avoid the 



