294 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



trackers. Owing to the unusual fact of the channel for 

 junks towing up being in the middle of the river, here 

 narrowed to about four hundred yards, I had a good oppor- 

 tunity of making a fair trial of the actual speed of the current. 

 I had with me a Walker's patent log, which registers on the 

 log itself, and not on the taffrail. In half an hour, during 

 which we advanced about a quarter of a mile, it registered 

 six nautical miles, making the speed of the current nearly 

 twelve knots for a distance of a quarter of a mile, while the 

 speed for the half mile lower down was probably seven to 

 eight knots. From this we passed on to the Tung yang tse, 

 a nasty looking cataract, but a less really formidable obstacle 

 than its smooth-looking companion, the Miao chi-tse, past 

 the city of Yun-yang, and on through a series of smooth 

 rapids, rounding the innumerable projecting rocky points, to 

 the foot of the celebrated New Rapid of Yun-yang, the 

 culminating and most formidable hindrance to navigation 

 on the whole river. 



This rapid, the newest of all, and commonly called the 

 Hsin t'an, or New Rapid simply, although its official name 

 is the " Hing lung t'an," or "Glorious Rapid" — a euphemism 

 to conciliate its guardian Dragon, — was formed as recently as 

 i8g6 ; so it is well entitled to its designation of new. Being 

 in a separate province, that of Szechuan, its name does not 

 clash with the old New Rapid, which is in Hu-peh, and dates 

 from A.D. 1640. At least, so the Chinese say, but to our 

 minds the nomenclature is most confusing. At this spot, 

 up to the night of the 12th September, 1896, the river flowed 

 in a wide tranquil reach ; but on that fatal night, part of the 

 foot-hills, about half a mile in width, broke loose from the 

 mountains upon which they leant and advanced into the 

 river, narrowing the channel at one stroke from about eight 



