A strong, fair wind took us swiftly and silently up the gorge of the “Military Code and the Precious Blade,” in which the water is said to be 1200 feet deep (?), and with some tracking up minor rapids, and some working round corners with poles armed with steel hooks which are inserted into the crevices of the rocks, we passed through the sublime Mitan gorge into a comparatively open reach abounding in vicious-looking reefs and rocks, among very rocky mountains, villages on heights, and superb temples on crags, and at sunset made fast below the picturesque and nobly situated town of Kueichow, the first walled city on the Upper Yangtze.

The Upper Yangtze is remarkable for the picturesque beauty of its cities at a distance, and their situations, almost invariably on irregular heights, backed by mountains, and with fine gardens and trees within their crenelated stone walls, which follow the contour of the site invariably, with one or more lofty pagodas denoting the approach, and with yamen and temple roofs dominating the mass of houses are very imposing.

One is only slowly convinced by experience that the interiors are not worth investigating. Dangerous reefs run out from below the walls of Kueichow, and as the river, if not an actual rapid, was at that time at least a chipa, it was not surprising not to find a single boat or junk there.