A wandering student in the Far East/The problem of the Yang-tsze

by Lawrence Dundas

CHAPTER IV.

THE PROBLEM OF THE YANG-TSZE.

I propose dealing with the whole question of commerce and communications in later chapters; but it may not be amiss if, while the description of my journey up 1400 miles of the Yang-tsze is still fresh in the reader's mind, I touch upon the problem of its navigation. The importance of this question cannot be overrated, since the Yang-tsze provides at present almost the only means of communication between the outside world and a portion of the Chinese empire which has been described as bearing "about the same proportion to the prospective value of the yet undeveloped Sudan as does the wealth of the city of London to that of any ordinary market town in England."^[1] The time occupied in the transportation of merchandise from the coast to Ch'ung-k'ing is a factor of no little importance. Let me recapitulate the dates of my own journey. On October the 21st I left Shanghai. On October the 24th I reached Hankow, 600 miles higher up the river, and left again at midnight on the 25th, reaching Ichang, 400 miles beyond, at 10 p.m. on the 29th. On the morning of the 31st I re-embarked in a light passenger junk, and reached Ch'ung-k'ing after a quick passage on the afternoon of November 22nd. Time occupied between Shanghai and Ch'ung-k'ing, thirty-three days. When it is seen that at the most favourable time of year for effecting a quick journey a traveller cannot expect to cover the 1400 odd miles in less than a month, it will be readily understood that merchandise may occupy anything from six weeks to three months from the coast to the commercial gateway of Ssŭch'uan, according to the state of the water and the time of year,—a matter of no small import to the people of the premier commercial and manufacturing nation.

But if delay in transportation proves a hindrance to commerce, high freights still further exaggerate the difficulty, and the freight charges ruling on the Yang-tsze are excessively high. Let me give examples. The freight recently paid on a ton (measurement) of English grey shirting from Shanghai to Chung-k'ing was £5, 12s.—considerably more than double the freight paid on the same consignment from Manchester to Shanghai, and that on a picul (133½ lb.) of soda ash valued at 3 taels 55 cents at Shanghai, 1 tael 40 cents, or 40 per cent of its value. Again, "on a shipment of 600 boxes of soap the freight was Tls. 1225, and the insurance and other charges Tls. 486, making the cost of the consignment about 40 per cent of its original value";^[2] and £1, 4s. was given me by a Chinese retail merchant as the cost of bringing a bale of cotton Italians from Shanghai. Nor must it be forgotten that Ch'ung-k'ing is only on the threshold of the province. From here on, goods may have to travel several hundreds of miles farther by water, or be carried laboriously overland on the backs of animals or men. Thus, at Ch'êng-tu, the capital of the province, "the foreign resident has to pay 10 dollars 30 cents for a case of kerosene oil which in Hankow costs only 3 dollars 40 cents, and a 4-lb. tin of Hong Kong sugar, worth about 60 cents in Shanghai, cannot be had for less than 3 dollars 40 cents. In fact, the latter is sold here as a sweatmeat for some six cash a cube."^[3] Such figures speak for themselves.

The pith of the particular question with which I am now concerned resolves itself into this—can transport by the Yang-tsze be expedited, and can the cost of such transport be reduced? In other words, is steam navigation between Ichang and Ch'ung-k'ing for commercial purposes possible? Statements have been made from time to time making light of the difficulties lying in the way of steam navigation—statements with which I find myself quite unable to agree. The members of the Blackburn Commercial Mission ascended the stretch between Ichang and Ch'ung-k'ing in November, a time of year at which, as I have already pointed out, the real character of the rapids does not appear. Hence they reported that "the stretch between Ichang and Ch'ung-k'ing has been credited with a character which in the estimation of this mission is ill-deserved.... The terrors of the so-called rapids (sic) ... arise more from ignorance of fact and circumstance than experience." And, again, Sir Robert Douglas in a recent publication declares that "repeated proposals have been made by foreigners to clear a passage, as might easily be done by the use of dynamite."^[4] For myself, I prefer to accept the opinion of Captain Plant, at present pilot in the service of the French Government on the upper waters of the Yang-tsze, who can boast of ten years of practical experience of these waters, and who speaks

Official lifeboat on the Yang-tsze.

eloquently of the "enormous difficulties" of the "chimerical schemes which have been put forward from time to time for the improvement of this part of the river." That steamers can surmount the obstacles was first proved by Mr Little, who ascended in a small steam-boat called the Lechuen in 1898. The account which he has given of this pioneer voyage is interesting in the extreme. That the boat was towed by coolies up some of the worst rapids, and that the journey occupied eleven steaming days or, including deductions, three weeks in all, in no way detracts from the merit of that gentleman's enterprise. "It was," as Mr Little himself points out, "a first experiment, which could not be hurried; it was, for necessary reasons, made at a season when the rapids were at their worst, and it was made with a vessel of insufficient power;"^[5] and it was followed a year later by a second ascent in the Pioneer, a boat built on a larger and more powerful scale, which may claim to be the first vessel which ever made her way from Ichang to Ch'ung-k'ing under her own steam. A German endeavour to follow her example met with disaster, the boat being wrecked and her captain drowned; but since 1900 the passage has been made with increasing frequency and success by one French, one German, and three British gunboats, the most modern of which, H.M.S. Widgeon, steamed from Ichang to Ch'ung-k'ing in under six days, or just over forty-seven steaming hours. Germany, whose earlier efforts were crowned with disaster, did not succeed in reaching Ch'ung-k'ing until May 1907, when the gun-boat Vaterland, which I found at Ichang waiting for a favourable opportunity to make a start, was successful, leaving Ichang on April 16th, and reaching Ch'ung-k'ing in nineteen days.

Nevertheless, the fact that light-draught steamers with powerful engines (leaving little or no room for cargo) can ascend the river at favourable times of the year is no proof whatsoever that they could be run as a commercial success. The mere fact that since Mr Little disposed of the Pioneer to the British Government in 1900 no further attempt in this direction has been made, points rather to a conclusion in an opposite sense; and indeed, to quote the opinion of Captain Plant once more, these attempts to run commercial steamers, "abortive as they were, sufficed to demonstrate that steamers of necessarily high speed, and of sufficient carrying capacity to enable them to pay, were quite impossible."

The rapids qua rapids do not by any means constitute the only obstacle to navigation, as is too generally supposed by those who have not thought it necessary to probe very deeply into the question before dogmatising upon it. It is its immense diversity of phase that renders the Yang-tsze so formidable a river. During November, April, and May, the two periods of the year between high and low water when the river may be said to be asleep, navigation by light-draught powerful steamers may be undertaken with a certain degree of safety, and it has been during these months that such steamers as have made the passage have done so. But during the remaining nine months of the year the river presents two widely different phases, each equally dangerous to steam navigation,—its high-water phase and its low-water phase. From December to March, when the river is at low water, the gorges and the reaches between the rapids are tranquil and easy, but it is precisely at this season that the rapids present their greatest difficulty. The three low-water rapids—Kong Ling, 38 miles above Ichang; Chin T'an, 44 miles above Ichang; and Hsin Lung T'an, 177 miles above Ichang—may be taken as examples. The only steamer that ever tackled the Chin T'an and Hsin Lung T'an rapids was Mr Little's Lechuen, which was little more than a steam launch, and was in point of fact hauled up the rapids in the same way as the native junk. Of the two attempts that have been made to negotiate the Kong Ling, the first ended in complete disaster and the second came within an ace of meeting with a similar fate. In the case of the Chin T'an and Hsin Lung T'an rapids there is a heavy fall in levels between top and bottom, amounting in the case of the latter to between seven and eight feet, while their danger is accentuated by powerful back-waters and vicious gyrating swirls. As the river rises the low- water rapids disappear and others form, the worst on a thirty-foot level being the Yeh T'an, the Meou Kou, and the Fou T'an, while the reaches between the rapids are converted from quiet stretches into turbulent rock-strewn mazes of swirling waters. The Yatse Ho, a stretch of fourteen miles between Nan Ton and Kong Ling, provides an example of this phase of the river. With a further rise during summer to a level of sixty or more feet, the peaceful gorges of the low-water period became turbulent chutes. The vast volume of pent-in water meeting all manner of submerged obstacles dashes in zigzag from shore to shore, cannoning off walls of rock until the whole gorge becomes one rushing, gyrating mass of angry water. A whole treatise might be written upon the particular obstacles which obtrude themselves at various places upon the river at different times of the year, but perhaps enough has been said to show that it was the opinion expressed by the members of the Blackburn Commercial Mission, rather than the "terrors of the so-called rapids" that arose "more from ignorance of fact and circumstance than experience," and that the assertion of Sir Robert Douglas that "a passage might easily be cleared" is too airy a generality for acceptance unless accompanied by definite suggestions as to practical methods for its accomplishment, and explanations as to how, even if a passage was cleared at some of the worst rapids, this would overcome the difficulties provided by the fourteen-mile stretch of the Yatse Ho and the tremendous force of the gorges at high water.

During 1906 an oft-suggested scheme for making use of steam haulage at the rapids crystallised on paper in a more or less definite shape, the model adopted being the system in use upon the Rhone. By Article V. of the Mackay Treaty of 1902 the Chinese Government admit that "they are aware of the desirability of improving the navigability of the waterway between Ichang and Ch'ung-k'ing," but set it upon record that "they are also fully aware that such improvement might involve heavy expense"—a conspicuous instance of the perspicacity of the governing body. They agree, therefore, "that until improvements can be carried out, steamship owners shall be allowed to erect, at their own expense, appliances for hauling through the rapids."

It appears to the uninitiated, however, that in connection with such schemes sufficient attention has not been paid to the enormous rise and fall of the water at different seasons of the year. Let us take an example. The summer of 1905 was remarkable in Ssŭch'uan for a prolonged period of drought. "Towards the end of July the crops had become parched, and rain was earnestly looked for. As is customary, one of the city gates was closed, and the magistrate was called upon to offer up prayers at various temples."^[6] He prayed with prodigious effect. On August 5th he attended at the city temple, and on August 6th rain fell in torrents, some distance higher up the river a waterspout burst, carrying away with it half a hill, and by the 10th the river at Ch'ung-k'ing had risen to 108 feet. "Houses, coffins, corpses, and living freight on various supports, were all making their way down river at a rapid rate, and the city walls were lined by natives watching the scene."^[7]

When the river rises 90 or 100 feet, what becomes of the hauling apparatus? If in the first instance it is set up at a sufficient height in the mountain-side to allow for such rises, what provision is to be made for handling the colossal weight of the enormously long steel hawser which it is proposed to use? Finally, by what means is the necessary steering-power to be obtained to counteract both the force of the current and the eddies and the huge weight of the hauling-line? These are questions to which I have never succeeded in obtaining a satisfactory answer.

On a small scale, approximating as nearly as possible to the present junks in shape and size, a tug and lighter scheme appears to be the only one at present practicable,

Battling with the Yang-tsze.

tug and lighter alike being hauled up those rapids which do not prove amenable to steam in the same way as the ordinary junk. Such a scheme might be feasible for six or seven months in the year, and might even be carried on to a limited extent during high water, the passage being thereby quickened and greater regularity and security obtained.^[8] That it would serve to lower the present high level of charges, however, appears to me to be extremely problematical.

It will be seen, then, that I hold little hope of any great improvement being made in the navigability of the Yang-tsze, it being to future railways that we must look, in my opinion, rather than to the taming of the river for improvement in the means of communication in this part of the world. However unwilling we may be to admit it, any material improvement on the present system of navigation is unquestionably beyond the range of present probability, and the same system in which "the annual loss of life, in spite of the excellent service of life-boats maintained by public subscription, is appalling, the percentage of cargo lost and damaged incredible,"^[9] is likely to survive for many a year to come.

1. Sir T. H. Holdich, K.C.M.G., K.C.I.E., C.B., in 'India' (The Regions of the World Series), p. 188.
2. Report by the Commissioner of Customs at Ch'ung-k'ing, 1905.
3. Report on the province of Ssŭch'uan by Sir Alexander Hosie.
4. Europe and the Far East,' p. 289. The italics are mine.
5. 'Through the Yang-tsze Gorges.'
6. Report by the Commissioner of Customs of Ch'ung-k'ing, 1905.
7. Report by the Commissioner of Customs of Ch'ung-k'ing, 1905.
8. According to late information a Chinese company has been formed for putting such a scheme into practice.
9. Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 3571: Trade of Ichang for the year 1905. The words quoted, however, are perhaps calculated to give a somewhat exaggerated idea of the loss both of life and of goods.