difficult matter to get them up and out on deck to face the cold. I confess I never cared to be the first to lift the hatch. But the voice of Mrs. Wang was equal to the occasion. She shook those sluggards from their rest with her strident tones; she stamped in her cabin and "slung slang" at them like the foulest missiles. At last, about seven o'clock, they might be seen unwillingly turning to and hauling up the anchor, not more slow-moving than themselves. As it happened, we had a fair wind and made a good day's run, but the iron stove seemed to be a failure, or at any rate our coal would not burn. It took us half a day of hard work to turn "Farmer's Bend," although one might easily walk across the neck of land which divides the two extremities of the curve, in a quarter of an hour. A canal cut across would be a great saving in the river navigation. We noticed many timber rafts from the Tung-Ting lake, looking like floating villages, and indeed they are neither more nor less than hamlets. Each on its substructure of timber supported two rows of huts, and in these dwelt the little colonies of Chinamen who had invested their time, labour and small capital in the trade. When the rafts reach Hankow, these huts are lifted off and placed on the river's bank; the owners residing inside them till all their wood has been disposed of. When steamers are seen thus far up the Yangtsze river (46 miles above Hankow) experienced pilots would be required, especially at this season when the water is at its lowest, and it might perhaps be necessary even, to survey the stream annually, for its channel tends constantly to shift. Steam navigation is now carried beyond — to Ichang, at the entrance to the Gorges of the upper Yangoge. At Paitsow, where we anchored for the night, we found men manufacturing bamboo cables. They had no rope-walks, but only high temporary-looking scaffoldings, with some men above
