was shunted from the mouth of the pit down a groove cut in the face of the cHffs, and when conveyed any distance is trans- ported in kreels on the backs of women. There were several mining villages at this place ; and there every household is employed entirely in the trade, the children making fuel by mixing the coal with water and clay, and then casting it in moulds into blocks which weigh one catty (1Y3 lb.) apiece. The miners who are occupied in this work earn about seven shillings a week, and their hours of labour are from seven o'clock in the morning to about 4 p.m.
Baron von Richthofen has assured us that there is plenty of coal in Hunan and Hupeh, and that the coal-field of Szechuan is also of enormous area. He adds that at the present rate of consumption the world could draw its supplies from Southern Shensi alone for over a thousand years ; and yet, in the very places referred to, it is not uncommon to find the Chinese storing up wood and millet-stalks for their firing in winter, while coal in untold quantities lies ready for use beneath their feet. These vast coal-fields will constitute the basis of China's future greatness, when science shall have been called in to aid in the development of her enormous mineral wealth.
Wu-shan Gorge which we reached on the morning of the 1 8th, is more than twenty miles long, and we entered this great defile about ten o'clock. The river was perfectly placid; and the view at the mouth of the gorge was one of the finest we had hitherto encountered. The mountains rose in confused mas- ses to a great altitude ; the most distant peak at the extremity of the passage, resembling a cut sapphire, with snow-lines that sparkled in the sun like the gleams of light on the facets of a gem, while the cliflfs and precipices gradually deepened in outline
