Shipwreck 297 



Chung-king : we had often to lay up for repairs which our 

 engine staff declared impossible. Then, our Japan coal 

 finished, we had to depend on local coal. With this we 

 could only raise ninety pounds of steam, and so were reduced 

 to half speed ; we managed to crawl along, however, making 

 some forty miles daily, without serious accident until one 

 evening when we struck a rock which all but wrecked the 

 boat and our hopes together. We were in the Scissors 

 Gorge, one of the many smaller gorges cut by the river at 

 right angles through the cross limestone ranges that break 

 up the sandstone plateau of Szechuan proper. It was dusk, 

 we seemed to have struck some better coal, and were hiu-rying 

 on to find a mooring-place, making about six knots over the 

 ground in the still deep water of the gorge. Suddenly we 

 bumped over a rock so sharp that it cut through the inch 

 teak planking, broke two hardwood frames, and sent the 

 water spoutbg up over the saloon floor. The vertical cliffs on 

 either side precluded our at once beaching the boat : the 

 only thing was to steam on to the end of the gorge. This we 

 did, our attempts to stop the leak meanwhile barely succeeding 

 in keeping the water from the fires. Fortunately, we soon 

 spotted a little steep patch of sand in the moonlight, on to 

 which we ran the boat : the men jumped ashore and quickly 

 carried the anchor up the bank, and we made fast for the 

 night. We worked the whole night through, stuffing cotton 

 and white lead and tallow into the cracks; we nailed 

 blankets down with planks over all, and by eight the next 

 morning had stopped the leak sufficiently to be able to get 

 under way again. Our pilot, who had proved very reliable 

 so far, declared that this was a rock newly fallen from the 

 mountains behind. In any case we should have cleared 

 it, had we not been hugging the shore so as to avoid the 



