ere relieved by beautiful bits of cultivation, little
hamlets of brown houses and red temples half concealed in groves of
golden bamboo and the glossy green of orange trees; moments when the
boatmen lounged on the deck or hung exhausted over their oars were
followed by grief, fierce struggles against the dreadful force of a
whirlpool that threatened to engulf us.

But, after all, that which most often comes back to me as I recall those
days is the feeling of the ruthless human will grappling with nature and
winning the mastery. Who can call China aged and in decay face to face
with her success in conquering a passage up these gorges? Who can
question the vitality of the Chinese, that has watched the trackers at
work pulling a huge junk against a current like the rapids of Niagara,
clambering over wet, rough boulders, creeping like cats along a thread
of a trail overhanging the gulf, clinging to the face of rocks that do
not seem to offer a foothold to a mountain goat, and all the time
straining with every muscle at a thousand-foot rope. An inhuman task
where men take great risks for a pittance, where death by drowning or by
being dashed to pieces on the rocks confronts them at every turn, and
where, at best, strains and exposure bring an early end. In my dreams I
see them, the long lines of naked men, their strong bodies shining with
wet and bleeding from many a cut, keeping time in a wild chant as they
tug at the taut line; a rope breaks and the toil of hours is lost; one
misstep and a life has ended.

[Illustration: _R. J. Davidson._

IN THE YANGTSE GORGES]

But this is the sole highway to Szechuan; all the trade of China's
largest province, the one best endowed by nature, must pass up and down
here. Any people less prodigal of their strength, less determined and
less resourceful than the Chinese, would have given up the struggle
before it was begun, and Szechuan would have slumbered undeveloped and
forgotten, instead of being as it is now the richest and most advanced
part of the empire.

And the next step is assured; before many years have passed, a railway
will connect the western capital with Wan-hsien and Hankow, the deserted
gorges will no longer reecho the cries of the trackers, and the upward
trip that now takes six weeks will be a matter of two or three days. It
will be a different Szechuan then, with its resources exploited, with
mines and factories, good roads and fine hotels, a power in the world's
m