Buddha, which Chin always took with him on his
wanderings.

All preparations having been slowly completed the day for departure
arrived, and Chin, with much bowing and ceremonial posturing, having
wished his wife and little son adieu, embarked with Wang, taking the
equivalent of five thousand dollars[2] in sycee shoes and gold-dust,
and amidst valedictory fusillades of fire-crackers, as well as a
beating of gongs, the flotilla cast off and sailed away down river.

Nothing of particular interest occurred during the voyage of two
hundred miles to the Poyang lake beyond usual delays caused by the
dried-up condition at that season of all waterways connected with
China's mighty river.

The sources of the Yangtse are to be found in the mountain ranges of
Thibet, and as during winter and early spring the deep snows of those
lofty regions lie icebound and the great river is fed only by local
rains, its waters dwindle in volume until they find a level forty feet
below that of summer and autumn, when torrid heat and torrential rains
thaw the snows in Central Asia and fill the river-bed with a thick,
brown current which, after overflowing into and filling all lakes,
tributaries and unprotected lowlands in the Yangtse valley, sweeps
eastwards to the ocean, a foaming torrent of irresistible force.

After about twenty days of incessant toil in tracking, poling and
yulowing along the tortuous and mud-bound channel of the Kan, where
sailing, owing to the low water and consequent towering banks which
shut off the wind, was seldom possible, the small fleet emerged on the
Poyang lake. Not, however, the magnificent sheet of water which is
found there in summer, but the lake as it is in winter, contracted to
one tenth of its maximum size, and little more than a wide and
sluggish river flanked by boundless mud tracts swarming with snipe and
wildfowl. Another few days' sailing, for the breeze could now be felt
across the wide marshland, and Hukow (mouth of the lake) was reached,
where the merchandise in the four small lake boats was transferred to
a large and stately junk destined to carry it far up-river towards the
West, while good accommodation was found on board both for Chin and
his assistant. As soon as the transhipment of cargo had been
completed, and Chin had written a letter for transmission to his wife
by the boats returning to Kanchow, sail was made on the junk, and
passing out of the tranquil waters of the lake she was seen to