Across China on Foot | Page 8

of a slight
remark that we might do without sugar, as we were to do without milk.
There was a pause. Then, raising his stick in the air, The Other Man
perorated: "Now, I have no wish to quarrel" (and he put his nose nearer
to mine), "you know that, of course. But to think we can do without
sugar is quite unreasonable, and I had no idea you were such a
cantankerous man. We have sugar, or--I go back."
* * * * *
We had sugar. It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small
packets of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with
commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had
unwittingly dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds
of this sugar were ordered, and sugar--that dirty, brown sticky
stuff--got into everything on board--my fingers are sticky even as I
write--and no less than exactly one-half went down to the bottom of the
Yangtze. Travelers by houseboat on the Upper Yangtze should have
some knowledge of commissariat.
Getting away was a tedious business.
Later, the fellows pressed us to spend a good deal of time in the small,
dingy, ill-lighted apartment they are pleased to call their club; and the
skipper had to recommission his boat, get in provisions for the voyage,
engage his crew, pay off debts, and attend to a thousand and one minute
details--all to be done after the contract to carry the madcap passengers
had been signed and sealed, added to the more practical triviality of
three-fourths of the charge being paid down. And then our captain, to
add to the dilemma, vociferously yelled to us, in some unknown jargon
which got on our nerves terribly, that he was waiting for a "lucky" day
to raise anchor.
However, we did, as the reader will be able to imagine, eventually get
away, amid the firing of countless deafening crackers, after having
watched the sacrifice of a cock to the God of the River, with the
invocation that we might be kept in safety. Poling and rowing through a
maze of junks, our little floating caravan, with the two magnates on

board, and their picul of rice, their curry and their sugar, and slenderest
outfits, bowled along under plain sail, the fore-deck packed with a
motley team of somewhat dirty and ill-fed trackers, who whistled and
halloed the peculiar hallo of the Upper Yangtze for more wind.
The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered
speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world
untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I
revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with
the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my
impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more
native life, and--more native dirt!--E.J.D.]
[Footnote B: The Kinsha was the first British gunboat on the Upper
Yangtze.]

SECOND JOURNEY
ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING, THROUGH THE YANGTZE
GORGES


CHAPTER II.
Gloom in Ichang Gorge. _Lightning's effect_. _Travellers' fear_.
Impressive introduction to the Gorges. Boat gets into Yangtze fashion.
Storm and its weird effects. _Wu-pan: what it is_. Heavenly electricity
and its vagaries. _Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy rain_.
Bedding soaked. Sleep in a Burberry. Gorges and Niagara Falls
compared. Bad descriptions of Yangtze. World of eternity. _Man's
significant insignificance_. Life on board briefly described. Philosophy
of travel. Houseboat life not luxurious. _Lose our only wash-basin_.

_Remarks on the "boy." A change in the kitchen: questionable soup_.
Fairly low temperature. Troubles in the larder. General arrangements
on board. _Crew's sleeping-place_. Sacking makes a curtain.
Journalistic labors not easy. Rats preponderate. Gorges described
statistically.
Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
slowly and impenetrably over all things.
A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became
darkened as black as ink.
Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north against
a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being,
lasting but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut
up the sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then,
suddenly, with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking
the earth under her far-outstretching