Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 285 (Color Image)

0285	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

RETURN TO CHINA 203

Continuing all the next day down the Ta Ho,

the Yangtze was reached in 212 miles at Fu-kuan.

The Ta Ho was only a small torrent, and the valley

lay between steep, well-wooded hills often rising in

great precipices to a height of 1500 to 2000 feet.

The path was very narrow and poorly paved and

led up and down the hill-sides. Occasionally

villages or farms surrounded with vegetation were

seen on the hill-sides. At 7 miles the way led

through the beautiful Ma-t'ang-ssu gorge, in which

were some picturesque waterfalls coming from a

great height. Here was one of those small stone

columns with a kind of devil's head which Pereira

had noticed on the Tibetan border all the way

from Kansu to this place. From here the path

winds along the hill-side and through gorges till

the Yangtze is approached. At 21 miles the

Ta-wan Ch'i is crossed by a ferry, and half a mile

farther on is Fu-kuan, a town of 3000 inhabitants,

at an elevation of 1044 feet.

From Fu-kuan Pereira had hoped to have made

a trip to Lei-po, but the Nosus had last May seized

seventy Chinese on the road to it and sold forty

of them as slaves in the interior. The Chinese

authorities were accordingly fighting with these

Nosus and travelling would not be safe.

Instead Pereira made a trip of 112 miles on

April 28 to Ma-yi-ssu (Ping-yi-ch'ang), which is the

real head of Yangtze navigation. From Fu-kuan

he ascended the right bank of the river, which is

here about 100 yards wide, muddy and of a strong

current with several small rapids. The going was

easy and the scenery pretty, the red sandstone

sloping hills from 500 to 800 feet high being fairly

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books