y starting-point. On the steamboat you have no
adventures. But on the houseboat you do. For instance, the other day
the rope broke as we were towing up a rapid, and down we dashed, turning
round and round, and annihilating in five minutes the labour of an hour.
I was afraid, I confess; but the boatmen took it as a matter of course.
In some way, incomprehensible to me, they got us into the bank, and,
looking up, the first thing I saw was an embankment in construction--the
railway from Ichang to Chungking. When it is finished we shall go by
train--not even by steamboat,--and so see nothing except tunnels.
Certainly, we shall not be compelled to pass the night in a small
village; nor permitted to see the sunset behind these lovely hills and
the moon rising over the river between the cliffs of the gorge. Nor
shall we then be delayed, as I was yesterday, till the water should run
down, and so tempted to walk into the country. I made for a side valley,
forded a red torrent, and found myself among fields and orchards; green
of mulberries, green of fruit trees, green of young corn; and above, the
purple hills, with all their bony structure showing under the skin of
soil. I followed a high path, greeted by the peasants I met with a
charming smile and that delightful gesture whereby, instead of shaking
your hand, they clasp theirs and shake them _at_ you. I came at last to
a solitary place, and, sitting down there, watched the evening light on
the mountains. I watched, and they seemed to be saying something. What?

"Rocks that are bones, earth that is flesh, what, what do you
mean
Eyeing me silently?
Streams that are voices, what, what do you say?
You are pouring an ocean into a cup. Yet pour, that all it
can hold
May at least be water of yours."

At dusk I got back to the river, and found that a wind had sprung up and
the junks were trying to pass the rapid. There must have been fifty of
them crowded together. They could only pass one by one; and the scene
was pandemonium. The Chinese are even noisier than the Italians, and
present the same appearance of confusion. But in some mysterious way an
order is always getting evolved. On this occasion it seemed to be
perfectly understood which boat should go first. And presently there she
was, in mid-rapid, apparently not advancing an inch, the ropes held taut
from a causeway a quarter of a mile off. At last the strain suddenly
ceased, and she