already in early March, over a foot high, the shelter of the distant mountains inducing a milder climate. Soon the lower spurs of the hills themselves reached to the bank and on the third day we coasted for some distance under a veritable sandstone cliff 40 feet in height. Thence we sailed past the walled city of Itu 20 miles from Ichang, to the Tiger Teeth gorge, where the hills are at length throughout conterminous with the banks. This gorge, which is situated 10 miles below Ichang consists of a low range of conglomerate, through which a channel has been probably eroded by the river. The walls of the gorge, which is only a mile long, are vertical for about 200 feet only, steep hills rising from them some 500 feet higher. The conglomerate of which they appear to be entirely composed is coarse and very hard. Ichang itself, situated on the left bank, is built upon a ledge of conglomerate, formerly an island submerged in the summer floods, curiously undermined in places, the actual site of the city being quite level. At the back is a depression now occupied with paddy fields and behind this the grouud rises gradually to a height of 100 feet at a mile's distance: the whole is entirely covered with a thick eruption of ancient grass-covered grave-mounds. Below the conglomerate ledge there extends, in winter, nearly half way across the river, a level sand-flat forming the anchorage of the port. The right bank is steep-to and even now, in winter, a three-knot current runs under it: in summer the current there often attains a velocity of seven knots. Upon this bank sandstone and conglomerate hills alternate in an unexpected manner, the former being of pyramidal form and the latter, though almost equally steep, exhibiting more rounded outlines. Immediately opposite Ichang is a striking isolated pyramidal hill, 600 feet high, its steepest side descending in an almost vertical cliff sheer into the deep water at its base. This picturesque but obtrusive object is a sad blow to the complacency of the good people of Ichang. It has the effect, so the geomancers say, of conveying the wealth of the place into the pockets of the strangers who come there and of preventing its accumulation in the hands of the poverty stricken natives. But a remedy has at last been found and thirty thousand taels have been collected wherewith to "pu or "supplement" the deficient Fengshui. On the rise behind the town a three-storied temple, which promises to be an unique work of its kind, is being erected. Let us hope it will not have the effect of preventing any unfortunate stranger who may now go to tempt fortune in Ichang from attaining his desires! After spending two days at this retired spot, investigating the curious otter fisheries and enjoying the hospitality of the genial Commissioner of Customs, I proceeded on my voyage up the gorges proper. The first gorge commences 5 miles above Ichang and is known to foreigners as the Ichang gorge and to the Chinese as the "Hsi-ling-hsia" or Gorge of the Western Mountains. The reach here is in winter fully half a mile wide and doubtless was once much wider, the whole of the low land on the left bank being once probably under water when the aspect would have been even more lakelike than now, when in summer the width just below the gorge is little less than a mile. Expression seems to have been given to this condition in the district name of Ichang-fu which is "Tung-hu-hsien " or "district of the Eastern Lake" Tracking up this reach along the left bank, no signs of the approaching gorge are witnessed and one would imagine oneself in a lake with high land on the left hand and in face (by which, of course, the mountains, through which the gorge is cleft, are hidden) and low, gently undulating country on the right. Suddenly we come to a split in the hill on the left and the entrance to the gorge is before us and we look down a narrow water alley with walls of limestone rising to pinnacles of 3,000 feet on either side. Through this gate, which is about 400 yards wide, the whole body of water from Szechuen and the country beyond pours forth into the lake-like expanse below. The contrast is inexpressibly grand. We scene. suddenly leave the brawling rapid and find a still, deep current without a ripple on its surface, flowing with majestic slowness through a bottomless chasm, and the gloom and the dead silence add inmeasurably to the imposing grandeur of the As one penetrates the gorge, which is about 10 miles long and which takes a sharp rectangular turn near its upper end, one has leisure to observe the fantastic outline of the mountain peaks which are composed of pure white limestone. The first entrance into the gorge produces an impression such as one experiences once in a lifetime. |