Tuesday, April 17th.—A quiet day indoors, receiving calls and writing mail for to-morrow's post, preparatory to setting out to visit the coalmine belonging to my friend Tung.

Wednesday, April 18th.—At eight o'clock friend Tung and his nephew arrived with three small shaggy ponies, one of which, a well-conditioned little animal standing about twelve hands, and a native of the neighbouring province of Kwei-chow, was destined for myself. My hosts had put a Miao-tse saddle on him. This, like all saddles in China, was made of wood, but it was covered with heavy carved lacquer, precisely like the celebrated Soochow ware. A wadded quilt, topped with a foreign blanket, succeeded however in shielding this showy but uncomfortable piece of furniture from the public gaze, as well as from the rider's posterior. A crowd assembled to see us off; we were soon mounted and trotted off gaily down the slippery street. My little animal being the best goer, I was requested to take the lead. My natural inclination to walk through the narrow crowded streets was overcome by my companions urging me to hurry on, as we were due at Shih ma Tsao, my host's home, where breakfast was awaiting us, at nine o'clock. The collar of bells, with which all Chinese riders surround their ponies' necks, warns the foot-passengers to stand aside, while their merry jingle gives a sense of speed and adds to the festive air of the cavalcade.

The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East India Company until now, is nothing but the record of a continuous struggle to open up and develop trade, with a people, who from the days of Pliny “ipsis feris persimiles, cœtus reliquorum mortalium fugiunt.” There is something pathetic in the honest persistency, with which the people and their officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from the outer world, and it is impossible for any disinterested onlooker not to sympathize heartily with them. An enormous population has here solved, imperfectly of course, but to a comparatively successful degree, the problem of the greatest happiness of the greatest number The venality of the officials notwithstanding, the people are, if not well governed, certainly not misgoverned; riches are fairly distributed, and the contrast of grinding poverty with arrogant wealth, the rule in Europe, is the exception here. Taxation is nominal, and such is the innate and universal love of order, that the reserve of force behind the decrees of the magistrate is limited to a few hundred men in a Province as large as an European kingdom. Competent investigators compute the total cost of the central and local governments at not more than 40,000,000l. a year, say two shillings per head for the whole population. Education is universal and voluntary.

Sunday, March 18th.—Rose at daylight. Another lovely summer morning with, dew on the grass and fragrance in the air; violets everywhere. Finished writing my mail and despatched it by the overland post, a courier who performs the overland journey to Hankow in five days. Breakfasted with Mr. Morgan at eleven, and immediately afterwards set sail, for the gorges and the far West. A still sunny day, with a breath from the eastward just sufficient to fill our sail, but our crew having been reinforced with three additional rowers, we made good progress crossing the now submerged sand-flat which two days ago seemed to occupy a fourth of the river's width. For the summer rise has begun and the level has risen four feet during my short stay at Ichang, and the width is increased by several hundreds. Poling and rowing over this bank, we avoided the deep water and strong current of the cliff-lined shore opposite, until after a distance of three miles, we were compelled to cross the river, and the trackers' labours began. Jumping on the rocks they scrambled with the tow-line around immense boulders, and along narrow ledges, which afforded a bare foothold to the sandal-shod feet of our active Szechuen crew.

The reach of the river above Ichang is about three-quarters of a mile wide and has all the appearance of a mountain loch; no sign of an outlet is visible, and as, toiling against the small rapid or “Chi-pa,” you approach the upper end, the river seems lost entirely.

Friday, April 27th.—I called to make my adieux to the members of the China Inland Mission, who have a staff of five or six members in this city. The China Inland, or Taylor, Mission is the most active of all the Protestant societies in China, and the only one that has followed the example of the Catholics in adopting the native dress. They lead hard lives, and work on a most ungrateful soil, but as they believe themselves to be simply carrying out the commands of their Master, and leave the results to Him, the fact that there are few or no genuine Protestant converts in China does not appear to trouble them. In fact, seeing that the only bonâ fide convert to Protestantism, certainly made, devastated thirteen out of the eighteen provinces, in his endeavours to Christianize his fellow-countrymen a little more rapidly than the missionaries were doing, the Chinese may deem it fortunate that not more enthusiastic converts are made. “Hung shui shuen,” the Taiping king, accepted the example and teachings of the old Jewish captains, in all their literal ghastliness, and slew the idolators without mercy. Sixteen years of desperate fighting (1848-64) passed away before his bandit hordes were broken up, and his capital, Nanking, given to the flames, in which he and all his household perished. Nearly twenty years have now elapsed, and the still desolate appearance of this, the Southern capital, remains a witness and a warning.

Sunday, April 8th.—Fine but overcast; a little sunshine at noon. The temperature in the cool courtyard of the hong was 65° Fahr.

Szechuen is noted among the Chinese for its overcast skies and showery climate; during the month of April that I spent there we had heavy showers regularly every night. The province seems to lie beneath a cloud-belt, a peculiarity depicted from ancient times in the name of the adjoining province of Yun-nan, which means “To the south of the clouds.”

Since the murder of Margary in 1875, a British Consular agent has been successively deputed from Peking to reside and travel in Western China, having his headquarters in Chung-king. This official was appointed under the Chefoo Convention of 1876 to see that the promised proclamation, stating the rights of British subjects to travel unmolested throughout the Empire, was duly posted in all the large towns; and generally to report on the capacity of these remote regions for trade. Much most interesting and valuable information has been thus collected, and issued to the public in the form of consular reports, where they lie buried. Baber, the inimitable, Spence and Hosie have all earned the thanks of their countrymen for their arduous labours in collecting original facts in this field. At the time of my arrival Mr. Hosie was away in Kweichow (the province lying to the S.E.) and the Consular Office was in charge of H.M. “Writer,” Mr. Mai, or to call him by his title, Mai-sze-yeh.

Friday, March 30th.—(Thirteenth day from Ichang; fifty-first from Shanghai). Off at dawn, through a beautiful country. On the left bank a range of the same picturesque hills about 800 feet high, and in many reaches too steep for cultivation. On the right bank rise gentle ranges of from four to five hundred feet, cultivated to the summit, and backed by mountains rising to 2000 feet. The air, balmy in the bright morning sunshine with the odour of the rape and bean, now in full flower; the water is pellucid, and flows with a smooth current of from two to three knots, except where it is intercepted by and rushes round the numerous rocky points, which at intervals contract the channel, when it flows at double this speed. I mounted up to one of the villages, which are mostly situated at 200 feet above the present level, safe from the summer floods. This, like many others, is built astride a steep glen, filled with tall cypress, and is called Tung tsz'yu'rh or Dryanda Garden. A steep flight of steps, the lower portion neatly cut in the solid rock, leads up about a thousand feet through this prettily terraced hamlet. Leaving Dryanda village, embowered in its rich spring foliage and flowers, we passed up the “Fuh t'an,” a rapid formed by immense masses of projecting rocks, but dangerous only in the summer floods.

Kwei-fu is the great Li-kin “barrier,” which taxes all the trade, passing by the Yang-tse route between the “Four-streams” province—with its population of 35,000,000, and its fertile territory as large as France—and Eastern China. The local Li-kin office or Custom-house is thus, next to that of Canton, the most valuable post of the kind in the empire. The transit tax averages about five per cent. on the value of the goods, which are all carefully examined by gaugers attached to the Ya-men, whereby a delay of three or four days is entailed on every junk passing up or down, their number amounting in the year to over 10,000. Hence, although situated in a poor mountain district, a large population finds subsistence and the town is studded with the numerous mansions of the wealthy officials and their dependents. These Customs form the main source of revenue of the Szechuen province, the land-tax having been almost totally abolished, to attract immigrants after its depopulation at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and having been never reimposed. But now a blight has fallen over the place, due to the machinations of the intruding foreigner, who has insisted upon passing up his goods from Hankow to Chung-king under a transit duty of two and a half per cent., the transit pass for the purpose being taken out in Hankow and the duty paid there instead.

Wednesday, April 11th.—Started early to return to town, and turned aside to visit an extensive garden, occupying a narrow glen overlooking the Siao Ho, in which are the courtyards, temples, reception-rooms, fish-ponds, winding stone paths, rockwork etc., of the “Ning Chiang Hui Kwan,” (lit., Assembly-hall of the tranquil stream) or Kiangsi Guildhall. The merchants and traders from the distant provinces, assembled in the larger commercial cities all over the empire, have each a guild-house of their own in each city. The glen above is filled with groves of magnificent bamboos, and the whole place is redolent of vegetation, and notwithstanding the sunshine, the air was close and damp like that of a hothouse. In picturesque spots scattered about the gardens are handsome pavilions, where parties come to “drink wine” i.e. to dine and to “shwa” i.e. flâner. The usual oranges, camellias and azaleas filled every vacant niche, besides numberless flowers, the names of which are unknown to me.

Notwithstanding the hospitality of the Tung family, I was glad to leave Mien-hoa pu (the village where they resided) as life in a Chinese country house (and indeed in a town house also) is insufferably dull. When the scrolls on the wall are exhausted, the enclosed courtyard becomes monotonous, and to enjoy the view one has to go outside into the street, and when I get up to go out I am accompanied by such a retinue—my own two servants as well as those of my hosts, and the members of the family (male only, bien entendu) that I could well sympathize with the boredom of royalty.

From Shanghai to Hankow the voyage is performed by one of the many magnificent steamers of American type which, since the opening of the Yang-tse River to foreign trade in 1860, ply daily between those two ports, a distance of 600 miles. It was on the eve of the Chinese New Year, in the middle of February, when at midnight I rode down in a jinricshaw to Jardine's wharf, and took up my quarters on board the Tai-Wo moored alongside, preparatory to starting up-stream the following morning at daylight; but sleep was no easy matter, thousands of fire-crackers were being let off in the streets, alive with countless Chinese lanterns, and the din was deafening. Native passengers were crowding on board, and the coolies carrying their luggage were wrangling over their pay. I at length got to sleep in the early hours of the morning, and woke up to find ourselves in the sea of muddy waters which forms the lower reaches of the Great River. A thin line of brown, a shade deeper than that of the water, barely visible on the starboard hand, indicated the left bank, while in the opposite direction the muddy waste extended to the horizon. Not a stray junk moving enlivened the desolate prospect, all were in port keeping the New Year's holidays, and a dull leaden sky completed the gloom of the chill February morning.

The last day of our downward journey now lay before us. The wild country of the “Yao-tsa Ho” and the long zigzag reaches of the Ichang Gorge alone lay between us and the return to “Western civilization,” as represented by the advanced guard of foreigners residing in Ichang. As we slid down rapid after rapid in the hourly increasing current, it was difficult to realize the arduous struggle we had sustained with each projecting rock, in our toilsome ascent. We moored for the last night at Hwang ling Miao, the point in the upward journey that porphyry and granitic rocks are first met with, and going ashore for a stroll before sunset, I had my last look at the wild valley, with its scattered piles of huge rocks illuminated by the setting sun. This valley forms an exception to the continuous ranges of calcareous and sedimentary rocks through which the river cuts its way in its course from Ping-shan, the highest navigable spot to the plains of Hupeh, a distance of 800 miles. The range out of which this valley has been cut, and of which Hwang ling Miao marks the eastern termination, would seem to form the axial centre of elevation of the whole of this mountain district. On its flanks, to the east and to the west, lie the gently tilted strata of sedimentary rocks, through which the channel flows in clean-cut gorges.

The Yang-tse River, which is known to the Chinese as the “Kiang,” i.e. “The River” par excellence, the “Chang Kiang” or the “Long River,” and more commonly still as the “Ta Kiang” or “Great River,” has a course of almost 3000 miles in length. It traverses the country from west to east, and may be said to divide the Chinese Empire into two nearly equal portions,—eight provinces being situated on its left bank, with the same number on the south: two only, Ngan-hui and Kiang-su, lying partly on both banks. For two-thirds of this distance, it runs through mountain land in a continuous ravine, the valley being nowhere wider than the river-bed. In the lower portion of its course, which forms the remaining third of the distance, the valley widens out, and the stream flows through an alluvial plain, following generally the southern boundary of the valley, except where it forces its way athwart the limestone range, which forms the division between the provinces of Hupeh and Kiang si, above the port of Kiukiang, past the vertical cliffs called Split Hill and Cock's Head in our English charts, until it emerges into its delta proper at Kiang-yin, 110 miles above the mouth of its estuary at Yang-tse Cape. The stream leaves the mountains at the Ichang Gorge, just 1000 nautical miles from its mouth; and some fifty miles below this point the boulders and gravel of the Upper River give place to banks of soft alluvium, the outline of which varies every season, notwithstanding the gigantic embankments with which it is sought to retain the stream in its channel.