compartment of the hold about five and a half feet square, and disagreeable indeed is the odour from that hold in the morning, for the boatmen keep the hatches carefully closed and smoke themselves to sleep with tobacco or opium, according to their means and choice. To get the poor fellows up early was a very difficult task; one by one they crawled out to face the cold north wind | and then came the time when their energy was most displayed. To their tiny enemies, which had to run to cover in the intricacies of their patched and padded coats, no quarter was given; and, this business concluded, they would commonly quarrel with their captain, Wang, or else among themselves; and at last, at about seven or eight o'clock, all hands would turn to and heave the anchor up, hoisting it by a capstan of simple make. As we advanced we were favoured with a slight wind, the sails were then spread, and the men squatted about the deck to enjoy their pipes, and the cheering prospect of a fair breeze, and no work to be done. The Yangtsze was now about a mile broad, and its waters were of a dark chocolate hue. The banks were low, furrowed or terraced with high-water marks left by the floods. These clay walls have a dark and tragic history, if one could but decipher it. Fragments of projecting wood here and there crop out from the clay,— the broken remnants, it may be, of some homestead, deposited with the liSris of a long-forgotten flood. It is slow travelling in these China boats; the old stage-coach had the speed of lightning in comparison with them. During the early part of the voyage we suffered greatly from cold, as the coal we had with us would not burn, and the back draught from the sail filled the cabin with smoke.
A fair run brought us, at eleven o'clock, to "Farmer's Bend," by far the most unsatisfactory part of the Yangtsze, for here the river makes a dtlour of about twenty-two miles to the north and west, returning so nearly to the same point that a straight canal half a mile long would join the two extremities of the curve. The wind died away at sunset, and we anchored for the night at Pai-tsu, forty-six miles above Hankow. Next morning we were up early, but could effect no start till seven o'clock; for Wang was in his bed aft, and his crew were forward, stowed snugly in the hold. An interesting dialogue therefore ensued. The skipper pointed out to his men the propriety of their turning to; and they, in reply, insisted that it was a captain's duty to be himself the first at his post. On this, our second day, in West Reach, we passed a long sand-spit not shown on the Admiralty chart, and next morning we sighted the Pan-thi rock, which rises in mid stream about a quarter of a mile distant from the left bank. As this rock is submerged in summer, it would be dangerous for a steamer to venture too near the bank. At this place the river was about two miles wide, and at the end of the reach is the entrance to the lake stream, which debouches from the mouth of the Tung-Ting Lake. Very beautiful scenery is to be found in this district of the Yangtsze. The banks at the season of our visit presented a bold and striking front to the vast expanse of water, while in the vapoury distance we could descry a line of white sails, those of a fleet of trading junks, as if pictured in the clouds, travelling far away into space, and leaving only small portions of the hindmost vessels discoverable by the naked eye. Beyond the Tung-Ting Lake the Yangtsze is known to the natives simply as the Ta-Kiang or Great River, and up to the point of confluence of the two streams a steamer of six feet draught would find no difficulty, even at this season, when the waters are at their lowest, in ascending the river. Any one experienced in river navigation would usually find the channels and shoals
