He was not abashed, but turned away wrath by saying to me, through an interpreter, "It is true that I cannot speak the foreign language, but the foreign gentleman is so clever that in one month he will speak Chinese beautifully." We did not come to terms.
At Hankow I embarked on the China Merchants' steamer _Kweili_, the only triple-screw steamer on the River, and four days later, on February 21st, I landed at Ichang, the most inland port on the Yangtse yet reached by steam.

Ichang is an open port; it is the scene of the anti-foreign riot of September 2nd, 1891, when the foreign settlement was pillaged and burnt by the mob, aided by soldiers of the Chentai Loh-Ta-Jen, the head military official in charge at Ichang, "who gave the outbreak the benefit of his connivance." Pleasant zest is given to life here in the anticipation of another outbreak; it is the only excitement.
From Ichang to Chungking--a distance of 412 miles--the river Yangtse, in a great part of its course, is a series of rapids which no steamer has yet attempted to ascend, though it is contended that the difficulties of navigation would not be insuperable to a specially constructed steamer of elevated horse-power.

Some idea of the speed of the current at this part of the river may be given by the fact that a junk, taking thirty to thirty-five days to do the upward journey, hauled most of the way by gangs of trackers, has been known to do the down-river journey in two days and a half.
Believing that I could thus save some days on the journey, I decided to go to Chungking on foot, and engaged a coolie to accompany me.

We were to start on the Thursday afternoon; but about midnight on Wednesday I met Dr.Aldridge, of the Customs, who easily persuaded me that by taking the risk of going in a small boat (a _wupan_), and not in an ordinary passenger junk (a _kwatze_), I might, with luck, reach Chungking as soon by water as I could reach Wanhsien at half the distance by land.

The Doctor was a man of surprising energy.