Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1899-09-18
CRUISING UP THE YANGTszE.

That determined and observant trav-
eler, Eliza Scidmore, who wrote of the
Chinese tea trade in The August Cen
furry, writes in the September number
of cruise up the Yangtsze- Kiang, and
the difficulties and perils that beset it.
| The I-chang Gorge cuts straight west
ward for five or six miles, and then
turns at a straight angle northward,
an arrowy reach between gray, purple,
and yellowed limestone walls overhang
with the richest vegetation. Tiny
orchards and orange groves are niched
between the buttresses of these storied
strata walls, and cling to terraces;
quarries and lime kilns show, and mud
houses are left behind, stone huts and
houses being cheaper beside the quarry
than the waffle and dab of the plains.
Brown junks f1oated in midstream, and
junks with square and butterfly and
striped sails were dwarfed at the root
Of the cliffs All day our crackers
strained at the braided bamboo ropes,
crawling up and down and over rocks
where bamboo hawsers have cut deep,
polished grooves in the conglomerate
and limestone banks by the friction OF
centuries. Lookout men at the waters
edge kept the line free from rocks,
throwing it off from any projections,
and wading out to release it from
hidden snags. Where foothold was
wanting, the crackers scrambled on
board and rowed around the obstacle
or across stream to tracking grounds
again. Their whole performance was
the burlesqCe of navigation, the climax
of stupidities and nothing ingenious or
practical seems to have resulted from
the three thousand years of Swift
water navigation on the Upper Yang
tsZe. The ridiculous, top-heavy, tilt
ing kwatsze is wholly unsuited to such
a flood river, and the crackers tow by
a rope fastened to the top of the mast,
as on the Peiho, the mast shivering,
springing, and resounding all the
while. They rowed us with poles,
round sapling stems held to the gun
vale by a string or straw loop, and it
was a marvel that the kwatsze re-
sponded to these bladeless oars, even
when all hands, including the cook,
rowed madly, screaming and stamping
in chorus, and the captain on the roof
raging and shrieking and threatening
to drop through upon us. The kwatsze
would reel and wabble, gain by inches.
and round the ripple or point, and the
ragamuff1n crow would drop off with
the tow-line and fasten it by a fiat
metal button at the end of their bricole
thongs With deft loop, that can be
detached with the least slackening, the
cotton thongs hold firmly to the slip
perry cable In all these thousands of
years they have never learned to cline
up" either by a captain on board or
winch on shore, nor to invent other
compelling saltwater fashions of the
Nile, the ST. Lawrence, the Snake, the
Columbus, or the Stlckeen.
Some years ago Admiral FIo was or
dered to these river precincts, where
1awlessness had been rife, and he, un-
precedented in this century in China,
took an interest in his work, and at
tempted to better things. He estab-
lished system of life-boat patrol in
the gorges, and his little red row-boats
waiting above and below rapids and
eddies, and moving along shore to rem
der assistance, had salutaTy effect on
the wild river folk