3o8 THE CHINESE EMPIRE
continue to be carried in the old-time junks, which take
back from Hankow their freights of the products of foreign
countries and of the southern provinces. Nor on the
Middle Yangtze, from Hankow to Icliang, has steam entirely
conquered. The trade of central Hupeh, which, if steamerborne,
would pass through the port of Shasi, continues to
follow the canals which subtend the arc formed there by
the Yangtze ; and the traffic of West China continues to
pass over this portion of the route in as great volume by
junk as by steamer. The trade by the Yangtze route may
be gauged by the figures for the value of the net import
and original export by steamer alone at the ports from
Chinkiang up, which in 1905 were as follows :—
Tls.
Net Imports 129,407,753
Original Exports 118,104,228
Total .. .. 247,511,981
A moderate estimate for the junk trade would carry this
total well over Tls.300,000,000.
6. The Upper Yangtze route is one continuous struggle
of man against the forces of nature. The Yangtze, flowing
for the upper two-thirds of its course through a valley
nowhere wider than the river bed,* emerges from this
narrow channel at Ichang after passing the famous Yangtze
Gorges. The flow of the river past Ichang is 560,000 cubic
feet per second as an average for the whole year round
and this volume of water, in passing through the Ichang
Gorge, flows through a channel contracted to a width
nowhere exceeding 250 yards and in places diminished to
100 yards, hemmed in by precipitous cliffs on either hand i
in the bengsiang (Wind-box) Gorge, 100 miles farther up
stream, the channel is even more restricted and the cliffs
more precipitous. The average speed of the current
throughout the year is not less than five knots an hour,
* “ The Far East," by Archibald Little.
