eign language, but the foreign
gentleman is so clever that in one month he will speak Chinese
beautifully." We did not come to terms.

At Hankow I embarked on the China Merchants' steamer _Kweili_, the only
triple-screw steamer on the River, and four days later, on February
21st, I landed at Ichang, the most inland port on the Yangtse yet
reached by steam. Ichang is an open port; it is the scene of the
anti-foreign riot of September 2nd, 1891, when the foreign settlement
was pillaged and burnt by the mob, aided by soldiers of the Chentai
Loh-Ta-Jen, the head military official in charge at Ichang, "who gave
the outbreak the benefit of his connivance." Pleasant zest is given to
life here in the anticipation of another outbreak; it is the only
excitement.

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. Some idea of the speed of the current at this
part of the river may be given by the fact that a junk, taking thirty to
thirty-five days to do the upward journey, hauled most of the way by
gangs of trackers, has been known to do the down-river journey in two
days and a half.

Believing that I could thus save some days on the journey, I decided to
go to Chungking on foot, and engaged a coolie to accompany me. We were
to start on the Thursday afternoon; but about midnight on Wednesday I
met Dr. Aldridge, of the Customs, who easily persuaded me that by taking
the risk of going in a small boat (a _wupan_), and not in an ordinary
passenger junk (a _kwatze_), I might, with luck, reach Chungking as soon
by water as I could reach Wanhsien at half the distance by land. The
Doctor was a man of surprising energy. He offered to arrange everything
for me, and by 6 o'clock in the morning he had engaged a boat, had
selected a captain (_laoban_), and a picked crew of four young men, who
undertook to land me in Chungking in fifteen days, and had given them
all necessary instructions for my journey. All was to be ready for a
start the same evening.

During the course of the morning the written agreement was brought me by
the laoban, drawn up in Chinese and duly signed, of which a Chinese
clerk made me the following translation into English. I transcribe it
literally:--

Yang