Up to Ichang, the Yangtsze is still a big, rather dull yellow river, a vastly overgrown Thames, a mass of sandbanks, running through almost consistently uninteresting country; but after that thousand miles, it develops into a sort of huge Rhine. The river is still yellow, but it runs through green mountains and grey rocks. At times it swirls along with an oily surface dented here and there by whirlpools which tell of some sunken rock; at other times the grey rocks creep closer together and the yellow {82} Yangtsze foams itself white in its effort to squeeze through the narrow opening left. In quieter reaches of the river a house-boat or luban can be rowed or sailed. The rowing is rather jerky, the sailing delightful, and so the advance of the traveller is pleasant and uneventful; but when the boat reaches the rapids, the only way to get her through is by towing. There is a temptation always to delay putting men ashore to tow--a temptation which ended in our house-boat being bumped upon a rock. Our captain (we call him "lowdah" in China) had cleverly devised, by creeping along the side of the river under shelter of projecting rocks and then by dodging round the points, everybody shrieking and yelling as they strained at the oar, to avoid the necessity of towing; but a more malign whirlpool than the rest twisted us round till the oars on one side of the boat could not row because they were fouled on the rocks, and then another twisted us sideways on to a submerged rock, and there the current held us till the police-boat the Chinese Government supplies to foreign travellers kindly took our rope ashore and we were hauled off without apparently having suffered any damage. These police-boats, or "red boats," are a great feature in travelling on the Yangtsze. They add enormously, to begin with, to the artistic effect, as they are furnished with an art-blue sail, which would rejoice the heart of an artist, but the nervous traveller {83} regards them with feelings of a warmer nature than those their æsthetic effect would arouse. They guarantee, if not the safety of boats and goods, at least the safety of his person amidst the terrible rapids of the river. If his boat should be wrecked and his goods become the property of the fishes, he knows that the "red boat" will dart into the rapids, and owing to its peculiar construction and the skill of the boatmen, will be able to rescue and return him, a washed and grateful traveller, to Ichang.