arket, the goal of the tourist, and--I am glad I saw Szechuan before
the railway came.

CHAPTER XI

FROM THE GREAT RIVER TO THE GREAT WALL

At Ichang, a thousand miles from Shanghai, I met the West, modern
comforts, bad manners, and all. Situated at the eastern end of the
gorges, this town of thirty thousand Chinese inhabitants and a handful
of Europeans is just where all the merchandise going upstream must be
shifted from the light-draft steamers of the lower Yangtse to the native
junks of forty to a hundred tons which are still the only freight boats
that venture regularly through the rapids and whirlpools of the upper
waters of the Great River. So the water front of Ichang is a busy scene
at all times, and in the winter season the boats are packed together
sardine fashion. When the railway is put through, all the river traffic
will cease, but Ichang proposes to control the new route as it has the
old, and already an imposing station has been completed, even though
only a few miles of iron rail have been laid down.

I shifted my belongings directly from the wu-pan to the Kweilu, a
Butterfield & Swire boat leaving the same evening. It was very
comfortable, although crowded, as everything seems to be in China.
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 is a merciful arrangement,
allowing the eyes and brain a chance to recover their tone after the
strain of trying to take in the wonders of the gorges, and I was glad
for the open, vacant land, thankful that there was nothing to look at.

The second morning in the early dawn we moored off Hankow, where I
planned to stay a day or two before turning northward. Hankow, Hanyang,
Wuchang, these three cities lie at the junction of the Han and the
Yangtse, having, all told, a population of some two millions. Located on
the Yangtse, at the mouth of the Han, one of the great waterways of
China, halfway between Shanghai and Ichang, and a little more than
halfway from Peking to Canton, and at present the terminus of the Peking
railway, which in good time will be extended to Canton, the future of
these cities is assured. Each of the three has some special claim to
preeminence, but the greatest of them is Hankow. Hanyang's chimneys are
preparing to rival those