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Few people, even in Shanghai, know what it means; so that to the stay-at-home European pardon for ignorance of existing conditions so much out of his focus should readily be granted. From Shanghai, up past Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the most skeptical foreigner.

From Ichang to Chungking a distance of 412 miles the river Yangtse, in a great part of its course, is a series of rapids which no steamer has yet attempted to ascend, though it is contended that the difficulties of navigation would not be insuperable to a specially constructed steamer of elevated horse-power.

So in spite of the fact that "nobody travelled that way," or perhaps because of it, I, being a nobody, decided to try the humble wu-pan again, and through the efforts of one of the Christian helpers in the Friends' Mission I secured a very comfortable boat to take me and my reduced following to Ichang for twenty-five dollars Mexican.

After much trouble he caught three of the murderers and, according to the Chinese law, they were put to death by hanging in wooden cages, and the Government paid an indemnity to the families of the murdered missionaries. The year after, 1893, a Catholic church was burnt down at Mar Cheng, on the Yangtse, near Ichang.

All junks in use between Chungking and Ichang are built with a view to navigating the numerous rapids occurring in the Gorges, and are chiefly remarkable for their abnormally high sterns, which, in the event of grounding on a sandbank while descending with a ten-knot current, serve as a protection against being pooped.

What would the canny Highlander or the rural English rustic think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his countryside? We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen in the East.

Ichang is, for all practical purposes, the present terminus of steamship traffic, for although a few small steamers have passed through the Gorges and reached Chungking, there have been many failures, and one German vessel, the ss. Shuihsiang, built expressly for the run, was dashed on the rocks and sank when on her maiden trip.

As an example, I note that among the Commissioners of Customs at the ports of the River Yangtse alone, at the time of my voyage the Commissioner at Shanghai was an Austrian, at Kiukiang a Frenchman, at Hankow an Englishman, at Ichang a Scandinavian, and at Chungking a German. The Australian had been ten months at Chungking.

Meares lost his companion and leader, poor Brook, on the expedition which he described to us. The party started up the Yangtse, travelling from Shanghai to Hankow and thence to Ichang by steamer then by house-boat towed by coolies through wonderful gorges and one dangerous rapid to Chunking and Chengtu.

Rats crawled over our uncurtained bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to us they were made on board. The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be passed through before one reaches Kweifu: Ichang Gorge 16 miles First and probably one of the finest of the Gorges.