16 TRADE OF ICHANG 
much as thirty inches in length, they have when per- 
fect and polished a very handsome appearance. Very 
powerful bows may be purchased here, and I brought 
home two, as well as some arrows. They are carried 
by some of the Chinese soldiery in the district, who are 
very well skilled in their use. 
As the weather was now much cooler than when I 
first arrived, 1 found it more pleasant to explore the 
city, which is walled, and with, as usual, very narrow 
streets. It is comparatively clean to some Chinese 
towns I have been in, and contains about 70,000 in- 
habitants. 
There is a large guild (called the Sze-chuen guild) on 
the bank of the river, and this is of considerable import- 
ance to the town. It is, of course, entirely for the 
up-river trade, and as the character of the river here 
changes completely (the banks instead of being flat 
become precipitous, for the mountainous region is 
nearly now reached), the navigation becomes much more 
difficult. The Hankow boatmen, indeed, refuse to pro- 
ceed further, and if the same boat is to continue to 
ascend she must have another crew. The greater part 
of the population is engaged in the transport of goods 
in one way or another, there being a very large export 
as well as import trade. Of the exports, the principal 
are medicines brought down from Sze-chuen and Tibet; 
