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Now as to the river from
Ichang to Chungking. I made the trip in the early part of June on the
passenger steamer Robert Dollar II, leaving Ichang at daybreak, as no
steamers run at night.
Steamers in this service
must he built to suit the conditions that exist, and I do not know of
any other river navigation so difficult. In fact, during a few days of
extreme high water, it is impossible to run. Then for five months in the
winter season the water is so low that it is impracticable to run at
all. The ideal steamer is about 200 feet long, 34 feet beam, and about 8
feet draft, and about 2000 indicated horsepower with boilers in excess
of the horsepower, so as to drive the vessel in still water about 15
knots an hour. In places, even with this speed, there are rapids in
which even such a vessel cannot stem the current in the middle of the
river, but must take advantage of the eddies on one side, then cross the
river when there is an advantage of less current on the opposite side.
The hull is built as light as practical, with a stem that has a very
sharp curve back to assist in steering. There are three rudders, all
connected; and for the speed required she must have tine lines, thereby
limiting her cargo capacity, which does not exceed 500 tons. The steamer
on which I traveled had armor-plated shutters to enclose the bridge, as
last year she was fired upon by bandits; the marks of the bullets are
still visible on the plates. At present this precaution is unnecessary.
In this section;, the
width of the river is from 400 feet to over a mile. While only 400 feet
wide, it is supposed to he from 400 to 500 feet deep, and the water is
very swift. This goes without saying, as the great volume of water that
must pass from a river one mile wide into such a narrow width, must flow
with a great rush. One precaution I was pleased to notice that the
Government had taken, was the establishing of signal stations at places
where the river turns at right angles, and it is
GORGES OF THE UPPER YANGTSE
impossible to see ahead.
A mail is stationed where he can see both ways; if the approach is clear
he hoists a cone with its point upward; if a steamer or junk is coming,
the cone-point is downward. This allows the up-stream vessel to stop in
still water and the other to pass without danger. In entering a gorge
where the cliffs towered over 1000 feet high, rising perpendicularly
from the water, the first thing that occurred to me was, how is it
possible for what is called the trackers to walk along and pull the
junks against the current. But I found that a path, in places not over a
foot wide, had been cut over a thousand years ago in a very irregular
way along the face of the cliff, and where small streams came in, steps
were cut in the rocks for the men to go down one bank and up on the
other side.
It takes at least 120 men
to haul a reasonably sized junk through the rapids, none of the men were
entirely naked as most had straw hats or bandages around their heads.
Except for this, however, they could be described as naked. A big hawser
of twisted bamboo is used, and each man has a small rope around his
breast fastened to the hawser. Generally they are stooped to the ground
and pulling for dear life, certainly a very hard and dangerous
occupation. I learned that they are paid a lump sum for the round trip
which takes about six weeks, their wages being $1.00 gold and their rice
furnished. I saw men swim out and clear the line when it fouled on a
rock, no very safe job in the rapids. This may appear to many a fairy
tale, but it is the truth.
At high water, Ichang is
220 feet above the level of the ocean, and Chungking over 710 feet, so
the elevation to be over come is nearly 500 feet in about five hundred
miles. In some exceptional places the current in the middle of the river
is so swift that a steamer of 15-knot speed cannot surmount it, and in
many places an 8-knot current has to be overcome.
As to the scenery—it
would be impossible for me to give even a faint description, this I must
leave to those more competent, and all I will write you must consider as
only superficial. Photographs are a great help in a case of this kind
but on account of the very high and almost perpendicular hills the dark
shadows make photography difficult. Every mile brought to view something
new and different from anything that we had seen before. One of the very
strange sights was, the families living on the steep hillsides where one
would think only goats could exist, but we could see small patches only
a few feet square terraced out of the rock, and with a little soil,
which must have been carried there, they were raising a few vegetables
and Indian corn, as it is impossible to raise rice. Under such
conditions one wonders how it is possible to reach those places, and how
they managed to carry up material to roof the shack, although stones w
ere obtainable to build the walls. There are a number of people living
in caves which can be seen in many places yn the hillsides. How they all
manage to live is a problem that I have never succeeded in solving.
The difficulties of
navigation are very great and the experiences are thrilling, but the
level-headed navigator with clear sight and steady hand can bring a
steamer through what would appear to be the impossible I remember on
coming around a sharp bend at a rapid that we met a big junk bound
downstream rowed by over 100 men. every man naked except the captain. At
iirst it did not seem possible to avoid cutting her in two, but by
extraordinary, skillful and rapid handling of our steamer, we rushed by
her with less than two feet to spare. Those junks are all steered from
the bow, as well as by a rudder. The bow sweep is from 45 to 50 feet
long. For a few-seconds I shuddered to think of the terrible loss of
life that appeared to me to be inevitable. While the men were all good
swimmers, at this place on both sides of the river the rocks rose
perpendicularly from the water, and for miles it would have been
impossible for any of them to have gotten ashore: and in this critical
situation it would also have been impossible for us to have rendered
them any assistance. When we passed, I looked to see how they would run
the rapid and saw a big whirlpool catch the junk and turn her completely
around. The last I saw of her, her bow was headed up-stream.
The rapids, whirlpools
and eddies make a ship act like a feather on the water. In all my
experience with ships I never saw one handled so quickly and efficiently
as this one.
THE RAPIDS OF A YANGTSE GORGE
To give an idea of the
extra power required at certain rapids, the captain has an arrangement
with the engineer, that when the engines are running at full speed, if
the telegraph rings full speed again he will open her out more, hut if
he again rings full speed it indicates she is in a critical situation,
and then the engine is run what we call "wide open," and the boilers are
made to produce all the steam possible. To show what reserve power she
had, on an occasion such I have just described, the safety valve of the
boilers actually blew off steam. For the safe navigation of the gorges
plenty of power is one of the most important essentials.
We reached Ouaifu at 8
:()0 p. 111., 110 miles from Ichang, where we anchored for the night and
filled our bunkers with coal. The appearance of the rock formation
indicates plenty of minerals.. Coal is in abundance, and only the out-croppings
have been worked as yet.
This is quite a good
sized walled town. The lulls are much lower than in the gorge and there
is plenty of rich agricultural land in this vicinity, the principal crop
being corn, although some tobacco is grown. There are lots of goats all
along on the hills. On our trip from Ichang to Quai-fu it rained in
torrents all day, which we thought was a great disadvantage, as the
heavy rains caused innumerable water falls over the cliffs. In fact
there was a waterfall, small or large, about every 1000 feet of the way
through the first gorges. It was a sight never to be forgotten. As we
went along the muddy water of the waterfalls changed in color from light
yellow to dark brown, and in some places to a light red, all indicating
the various kinds of soil the water was passing over. The dark brown
color of the Yangtse continued as at the mouth of the river, and full of
sediment. In this 110 miles we must have passed more than twenty
temples, some of good size, but the majority small, all built on the
tops or near the tops of the hills. They were m the most inaccessible
places one could imagine. Evidently they were of the opinion that God
did not descend to the lower levels.
As to the quality of coal
we are getting, some of it is fairly good, while some is only passable,
but for surface coal it can be considered good. When it is mined farther
in from the surface, coal of a better quality may be expected and an)'
amount of it right close to the river.
Our second day's run was
from Quai- fu sixty-seven miles to the big city of Wang Hsin, where ail
steamers have to anchor and report to the European customs officers, who
come on board and make a very perfunctory visit, get a copy of the
manifest, etc. A short distance further we entered the big rapid of Hu-Tan,
at the foot of which there was a big whirl pool, big enough to swallow a
small sized boat. Stories are told of several having been swallowed in
this whirlpool and all hands lost. At this part of the river, between
rapids, there were some good stretches of straight river about a half
mile wide. We now passed stretches of good agricultural country, the
hills that are not too rocky being terraced and cultivated to their
tops. The principal crops are corn and tobacco, which gives one the
impression that the climate must be similar to our Southern States.
The first attempt to
supersede junks in the navigation of this river was made by a tug with a
lighter in tow, in 1908. This effort was only partially satisfactory.
Then a passenger steamer service was inaugurated in 1914, and up to the
present it can be said to have been only partially successful, on
account of the numerous and costly accidents, several steamers having
been a total loss. But it would appear, with a better know ledge of the
river and by putting on steamers of greater power, that accidents should
decrease.
To give an idea of the
erratic rise and fall of the water. At Wu-Shan rapid and gorge the high
water mark reached 203 feet above what is called zero, which is supposed
to be normal low. When we passed this gorge going up it registered 93
feet, and when we returned three days later it had fallen to 79 feet, a
drop of 14 feet and at a time when we expected a rise and not a fall, as
extreme high water comes in early August, and is caused by the melting
snows on the Himalaya Mountains. At this place the greatest rise and
fall occur.
At Snihpoachai we passed
a monastery built on a rock that is perpendicular on its four sides, and
to reach the top to build
A WHIRLPOOL IN THE UPPER YANGTSE
the monastery they
erected a nine-story pagoda leaning against one side of the rock,
thereby providing the means for the monks to go up and down to their
domicile, nearly 200 feet above the ground. The rock appeared to be
about 400 feet square on the top, which was entirely covered with
substantial buildings.
Since writing the
foregoing I am in receipt of our weekly Ichang report, telling of the
sudden rise of the river at Ichang gorge where it reached the incredible
height of 330 feet above low water level, the highest in 25 years. It
flooded the bund at Ichang to a depth of four feet. This gives a good
idea of the very erratic rise and fall of the water in the Upper Yangtse.
On the third day we
passed the large city of Feng Tu. At another city, Fuchow, we have an
arrangement to have junks loaded with coal waiting for our steamers to
replenish their bunkers. Here we obtain good coal, which comes down a
tributary river about fifty miles from Fuchow.
At Li fu Chang is a very
large pottery plant and at this place last year bandits fired a volley
of bullets at our steamer, but the armor-plates saved the captain and
pilots. No bullets penetrated but many dented the steel, and the marks
they made are still plainly to be seen. The marines aboard made short
work of the bandits with machine guns, as eleven bodies were seen to
float by. This action gave our steamer a "clean bill of health" at this
place, and we have not been molested since.
Near this place are two
statues cut into the solid cliff far enough in to protect them from the
weather. They represent an honest man and his wife. From the reception
our steamer got here we must assume that even in olden times an honest
man and his wife were such a rarity that they perpetuated their memory
in this manner. It is refreshing to know that hundreds of years ago
there was an honest man in this den of bandits.
We reached Yellow Flower
Gorge at 6:0() p. m. This is an other passage with sides of
perpendicular rocks. On both sides it is dangerous to meet vessels as
there are two right-angle turns in it, and as it is not more than four
hundred feet wide the current is very swift. At both the turns it looked
as if we had come to the end of the river until we got to the corner and
then the channel opened up before us. 1 noticed several openings in the
side of the gorge where coal had been mined, or rather where the surface
seams had been opened up, showing that there is an abundance of coal
that can be had on the. surface.
At Chang Shun we anchored
for the night. We noticed a very high bridge, that had been built many
years ago, across a tributary. It was of stone and had four symmetrical
arches— a line piece of architecture.
A peculiarity I noticed
in the junks was, that all those bound up river had their masts stepped,
as sails are set when there is a favorable wind, in conjunction with the
trackers' rope; whereas, all junks bound down stream had their masts
down and generally lashed alongside.
I mention again the
efficient system of warning all steamers and junks of the presence of
vessels when it is impossible to see ahead before they would be on top
of each other. I fully appreciate the great saving of life this system
affords, besides, at the most dangerous places, life saving boats and
crews are provided and are continually on the alert for accidents. They
are called the Red Boats.
We are now getting into a
more fertile country which show s intense cultivation, and as a result
big crops; corn and tobacco predominate, although many other crops are
in evidence.
On the morning of the
fourth day we passed through the gorge and rapids of Ye Lo Tseod, (Wild
Mule Rapid). I suspect it is called tips on account of the vigorous kick
it has.
A few miles below
Chungking we came to the installation of the Asiatic Petroleum Company
which has tankage, good houses and godowns. The Standard Oil Company
installation is a short distance above the city on the opposite side of
the river. We arrived at Chungking at 10:00 a. m. We did not run at
night, our day being from 4:30 a. m. to 7:30 p. in. We made the trip up
in fifty-four hours.
The first appearance of
the city was very impressive, as it is built on a rock foundation about
three hundred feet above the river, on a level plateau. At present our
steamers berth across the river, but we have secured land on the city
side at the juncture of what is called the Small River and the Yangtse.
When I saw it, it was
nearly half a mile wide and had a very strong current. Our land is near
a principal gate of the city, but it is very steep, as is all land on
the city front. The great advantage is to have a mooring place for our
hulk, and from the limited time that I had, it looked as if the location
was as good as could be had on the city front. The pontoon, a real good
one built of Oregon pine, and the very first to come to the Province of
Szechuen; is well built and adaptable for the service it is intended. An
interesting part in making it fast to the shore to resist the great
current caused by the rapid rise of water, (up to over ninety feet,) is
the manner in which the chains are fastened. Holes are cut in the solid
rock, and the chains are shackled to them, so to break away, a part of
the rock hillside would have to come out. When this is completed We will
have by far the best landing equipment in this city. All roads from the
water up to the city are steps cut into the rock. Immediately before
arriving, the steamer passed an image cut into the rock and recessed
about three feet to protect it from the weather. It was beautifully
gilded and resembled gold. This is the god of the river and every
steamer or boat that passes, "fires off" fire crackers; if bound up,
thanking it for a safe passage, and if starting down, beseeching it to
grant a safe passage through the rapids. |
