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Updated: June 24, 2025
The latter, one of the most beautiful of living birds, is found now in only two localities near Ichang on the Yangtze River, and at the Tung Ling. When the forests of the Eastern Tombs have been cleared this species will be extinct in all north China. Early in the morning we left with six hunters. Our way led up the bottom of the valley toward a mountain ridge north of camp.
Since then I have seen more native life, and more native dirt! Gloom in Ichang Gorge. Lightning's effect. Travellers' fear. Impressive introduction to the Gorges. Boat gets into Yangtze fashion. Storm and its weird effects. Wu-pan: what it is. Heavenly electricity and its vagaries. Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy rain. Bedding soaked. Sleep in a Burberry. Gorges and Niagara Falls compared.
Until recently, British subjects were at liberty to carry on business at but eighteen ports in China. To these must be now added Shansi on the Yangtse, between Ichang and Hankow; Hangchow and Souchow, two inland cities near Shanghai; Woochow and Sanshui on the West River and Ssumao and Lungchow, in the south.
Before leaving Ichang for a trip to the Yangtse gorges I expressed my intention of trying to get some of those beautiful Reeves pheasants, having tails several feet in length, which are indigenous to that locality, but was warned that it would be necessary to take long leggings as a protection against spear-grass.
Indifference to comfort. Surprise at our daring project. At Ichang. British gunboat and early morning routine. Our vain quest for aid. Laying in stores and commissioning our boat. Ceremonies at starting gorges trip. Raising anchor, and our departure. Let no one who has been so far as Ichang, a thousand miles from the sea, imagine that he has been into the interior of China.
At the head of this reach H.M.S. Woodlark came to grief on her maiden trip. Half-way through is the boundary between Hu-peh and Szech'wan. They are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the river on which they ply. The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated on the river upward from Ichang.
Ichang stands at the extreme eastern edge of the tangle of mountains that stretch across Szechuan to the Tibetan plateau, and just below this point the scenery changes, the hills dwindle, and the valley opens into the wide flat plains of the lower Yangtse.
It will be a different Szechuan then, with its resources exploited, with mines and factories, good roads and fine hotels, a power in the world's market, the goal of the tourist, and I am glad I saw Szechuan before the railway came. At Ichang, a thousand miles from Shanghai, I met the West, modern comforts, bad manners, and all.
Their numbers were thinned by disease as well as loss in battle, and of the two armies sent to capture Pekin only a small fragment ever regained Nankin. While these events were in progress in the region north of Nankin, the Taepings had been carrying their arms up the Yangtsekiang as far as Ichang, and eastward from Nankin to the sea.
The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West. When I revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my impressions of a great city like Hankow.
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