10 THIRTY THOUSAND MILES IN CHINA 



To hinder its overflowing, embankments hem it in, some 

 nearer, others farther, ranging one behind another at variable 

 distances. In this manner, if one gives way, another pre- 

 vents the inundation. In their present state, these works are 

 still very inefficient, the dikes being weak and constructed 

 with materials that offer insufficient resistance. 



Nowhere throughout its length is the Yellow River navig- 

 able without difficulty. Its highest reaches are rock strewn 

 and only rafts can be used with any degree of safety. In 

 the long southward reach between Shansi and Shensi naviga- 

 tion in crude boats can be accomplished downstream but only 

 with considerable difficulty owing to the many rapids, and at 

 one point navigation is completely interrupted by the young 

 niagra of Lungwang or Dragon King, 250 miles below Paote. 

 Above the falls the river is about 200 yards wide, and the 

 channel is broken up by rocky ledges. The bulk of the 

 water, a tumbling mass of a coffee colour, flecked with foam, 

 plunges into a narrow crack in its bed near the Shensi shore. 

 The depth of the fall is about 60 feet, but the bottom is a 

 seething cauldron which cannot properly be seen owing to the 

 clouds of spray that rise from it. The remainder of the water 

 falls into the same fissure at right angles to the main fall in 

 a series of cascades 500 yards long. There is a spot some 

 distance below the fall where, standing on the roadway by 

 the river-bank and looking upstream, one sees a cloud of blue 

 mist rising from the middle of the water without apparent 

 cause, while at one's feet the whole volume of a great river 

 rushes for three miles down a narrow canyon in places not 

 more than 15 yards, and nowhere more than 40 yards wide. 



A day's journey below the falls is the famous Lungmen 

 gorge, ending in the straits of Yumenkow. This gorge is 

 about 10 miles long. The river is a deep, still stream 150 1 

 yards wide, and races between precipices of reddish-grey 

 sandstone 800 feet high. Above the precipices the cone- 

 shaped tops of the hills covered with green scrub rise for 

 another 800 feet. At Yumenkow the banks contract to 50 

 yards, and upon each side of the strait there is a fine temple. 

 Coming down-stream, when one's boat rushes through this 

 strait there is a striking transformation, the river suddenly 

 leaving the hills and spreading out over a sandy flat to a 

 breadth of three miles. 



At Yumenkow coal brought by mulepack from the mines 

 of Southern Shansi is loaded on so-called "Honan" barges, 

 curiously bedecked with bells, which carry their cargoes to- 

 Tungkwan and also up the Wei. 



