SHI-PO-CHIdA 165 
I saw snow still lying on the sides of the steep hills at 
the back of the town. The river was now at its lowest, 
and when in that state the Ta-tung Rapid is not 
dangerous. 
After leaving Quei-chow-fu I was suspicious of two 
of the men of my crew, my boat having been, I thought, 
maliciously put upon a rock. One of them was the 
pilot, and I noticed that he frequently had disagree- 
ments with the lowban. I got rid of both of them at 
an early opportunity. The boat, however, was damaged, 
and next morning the water was above the cabin floor. 
She was soon baled out, the leak discovered and tem- 
porarily stopped, permanent repairs being made at 
Yeng-yang-hsien. No serious damage was done, but 
the delay was annoying. 
At Shi-po-chia there is a very curious pagoda, 
which, instead of being built as usual on the top of 
a hill, is constructed against an enormous isolated 
limestone rock about 400 yards from the river bank, 
where it forms a very conspicuous object, the top of the 
pagoda appearing just above the rock. | 
Chung-king was reached on March 12, and I waited 
till the 17th, Mr. Cockburn very kindly inviting me to 
stay with him. Here I had to change my trackers and 
get an up-river crew. I also sent a collector from here 
to Quei-chau, a poor but interesting province about 
