At times they are a quarter of a
mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines
of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky
promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their
bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river.
Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his
body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last
journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet
these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their
lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and
receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.
Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by
mentioning the exploits of the steamer _Pioneer_, which on three
consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and,
though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged
to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of
her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard
and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the
hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the
dragon of the river.
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