Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. III.pdf/55

sacrifice, and later in the evening I was called upon to adjust a dispute. Chang protested that his honourable name had been sullied by the drunken behaviour of the boatmen; I, however, discovered quickly that our venerated interpreter was himself not without sin, being, indeed, unable to stand erect. The crew spent the night in drinking, gambling, and opium-smoking, rioting noisily, and firing crackers from time to time. In the morning the skipper sacrificed a cock to the river goddess and cast some wine upon the waters. After the libation he himself partook of the beverage with a liberality that made a deep impression on the thirsty boatmen, to whom he finally relinquished the well-nigh emptied flask. Two or three miles above the village we encountered the first rapid; and here, at a small hamlet, we lost much time in engaging additional hands, at holiday rates, to tow us up the stream. This task they accomplished by fixing a strong bamboo tug-line to the masthead, while a second rope was made fast to a rock at the top of the rapid, and hauled in on deck, so that we might be kept in position, if the towing line gave way. The water here was flowing at the rate of about seven knots, and the rapid, which was a dangerous one, had but a single narrow channel, surrounded above and below by jagged spikes of rock, which showed above water at that season of the year. I gather from the narratives of Captain Blakistow and Mr. Swinhoe that when the river has risen, there is no rapid at this point at all, and no special danger to be encountered. It would, however, be of the greatest importance to ascertain, by actual careful survey, the exact positions of these rocks, for a steamer might be easily impaled on any one of them during the period when they are submerged. Numbers of them could be removed by blasting when the waters are low; and this may be said of many other rocks in various parts of the gorges. The river is usually at its lowest during the month of February; and in July and Aumist the floods attain their greatest height. At that time in the gorges, the waters apparently rise full seventy feet above their lowest level, the increase being of course greatest where the passage is most contracted. The drum seen in front of No. 34 is an instrument which can be heard above the roar of the rapid and yell of the trackers, and its sounds are supposed to nerve the men to greater exertion. In this instance the trackers, fifty in number, each with his bamboo loop slung over the shoulders and attached to the towing-line, were crawling forward inch by inch, hands and feet firmly planted in the rocks, on the bank, till at length they launched the labouring boat into the smooth waters above. The Lu-kan Gorge, which we entered on the afternoon of the ofh, presented a scene yet grander than any which we had hitherto encountered. Here, the mountains were more than 3,000 feet high, and sheer precipices of 1,000 feet rose up from the very margin of the water (see Plate XXIII. No. 50). Many of the rocks at this place contain strange vertical borings formed apparently with a sort of natural sand drill. Small hard pebbles, imprisoned in recesses of soft rock, have, with the aid of particles of sand and water, in time pierced these deep vertical shafts, and the attrition of the water upon the face of the rocks at last brings the tunnelled apertures to light. The second rapid occurs at Shan-tow-pien. Here %ve found two wrecks; and these made up in all nine wrecks of native craft, which we had noticed since we quitted I-Chang. The owner of one of these shattered boats, a very aged man, was living in a small cabin which he had made out of spars and matting; and there he had been waiting for a week. He seemed extremely wretched, and we volunteered