321
NOTES AND QUERIES
A TALE OF SOUR GRAPES: MESSRS. LITTLE AND MESNY AND
THE FIRST STEAMSHIP THROUGH THE YANGZI GORGES
KEITH STEVENS
In 1898 Archibald Little was the first man to take a steam-vessel up through the dangerous Yangzi Gorges amidst great acclaim. This was a red-rag to William Mesny who, in 1905 in his Shanghai periodical Mesny's Chinese Miscellany, furiously wrote that had he been listened to in 1875, a steamboat could have completed the journey up the Gorges within a year or so of that date.
The 3,200-mile long river, referred to by westerners as the Yangzi is known to the Chinese as Changjiang, Long River, or Da Jiang, the Great River. The foreigner name, Yangzi, is a misnomer from the Chinese reference to the first stretch from the Yellow Sea, approximately a day or so sail up from Shanghai to Yangzhou, hence Yang.
The River can be divided into four sections. The first stretch from the sea to Wuhan [Hankou and Wuchang], some 600 miles upstream, is navigable for blue water vessels during the summer and small draught steamers at all times of the year. It may come as a surprise to read of the emergency run in September of 1931 of the British aircraft carrier, H.M.S. Hermes to Hankou during major floods. The Chairman of the Nationalist Flood Relief Commission, T.V. Soong, requested the British C-in-C for assistance using RAF reconnaissance aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes to assist the Chinese in flood survey patrol work.
The second stretch upstream from Wuhan to Yichang is always navigable to small draught vessels and is a very boring run passing, as it does, through a flat plain with many dykes.
The third stretch from Yichang to Chongqing is fast flowing downstream through the narrow and dangerous succession of Gorges, so popular with foreign tourists. The great variations in water level
321
NOTES AND QUERIES
A TALE OF SOUR GRAPES: MESSRS. LITTLE AND MESNY AND
THE FIRST STEAMSHIP THROUGH THE YANGZI GORGES
KEITH STEVENS
In 1898 Archibald Little was the first man to take a steam-vessel up through the dangerous Yangzi Gorges amidst great acclaim. This was a red-rag to William Mesny who, in 1905 in his Shanghai periodical Mesny's Chinese Miscellany, furiously wrote that had he been listened to in 1875, a steamboat could have completed the journey up the Gorges within a year or so of that date.
The 3,200-mile long river, referred to by westerners as the Yangzi is known to the Chinese as Changjiang, Long River, or Da Jiang, the Great River. The foreigner name, Yangzi, is a misnomer from the Chinese reference to the first stretch from the Yellow Sea, approximately a day or so sail up from Shanghai to Yangzhou, hence Yang.
The River can be divided into four sections. The first stretch from the sea to Wuhan [Hankou and Wuchang], some 600 miles upstream, is navigable for blue water vessels during the summer and small draught steamers at all times of the year. It may come as a surprise to read of the emergency run in September of 1931 of the British aircraft carrier, H.M.S. Hermes to Hankou during major floods. The Chairman of the Nationalist Flood Relief Commission, TV Soong, requested the British C-in-C for assistance using RAF reconnaissance aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes to assist the Chinese in flood survey patrol work.
The second stretch upstream from Wuhan to Yichang is always navigable to small draught vessels and is a very boring run passing, as it does, through a flat plain with many dykes.
The third stretch from Yichang to Chongqing is fast flowing downstream through the narrow and dangerous succession of Gorges, so popular with foreign tourists. The great variations in water level
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