If the rope breaks, it is rather a question of good luck than good guidance. If there is no rock in the way, the junk happily sails down and is brought up in the quieter waters below the rapids. If there is a rock in the way, the junk arrives at the end of the rapid in a condition which would please firewood collectors but no one else. Those of the crew who can swim get ashore, and those who cannot are either picked up by the "red boat," or if there is not one there, they disappear; their bodies are recovered several days later lower down the river. From a Chinese point of view this is all a small matter; what is important is that a junk containing a valuable cargo has been lost. So frequent have been these losses that five per cent. insurance is demanded for cargoes going above Ichang. [Illustration: GORGES OF THE YANGTSZE: AN AWKWARD MOMENT. JUNK NEGOTIATING RAPIDS. (Notice coils of bamboo rope)] Perhaps I ought to say one word about the rope on which the safety of the junk depends. It is made of plaited bamboo, which is extraordinarily light, and does not fray, though it is so stiff that it behaves like a wire rope. Its great lightness {86} allows of the use of ropes of enormous length. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that some of them are a quarter of a mile long. They are very strong, and therefore can be of wonderfully narrow diameter, but apparently they last but a short time, and every boat is furnished with coil after coil of bamboo rope ready for all emergencies. A horrible accident happens when owing to bad steering the trackers are pulled back off the narrow ledges cut into the face of the precipices, which at times border the river, so that they fall into the rapid.