the great swirls in the
bay below. H.M.S. _Woodlark_ came to grief here on her maiden trip up
river.

HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)

Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge,
particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906,
the French gunboat _Olry_ came within an ace of destruction by losing
her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong
for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working
astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the
way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back
undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to
and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management
she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually
brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden
jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her
destination.

HEH SHIH T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)

Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.

HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)

Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon
Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low
river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as
1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its
breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced
this roaring rapid.

This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky
bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped,
tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift
back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at
its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly
with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely
disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and
March, when it certainly merits the appellation of "Glorious Dragon
Rapid," presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome
one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A
hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children,
are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din
of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat
is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Ch