RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA 171 which was brought out in sections and assembled in Shanghai. The Chinese, however, refused to allow the Kuling above Ichang, and after a year of wrangling, Little sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, reputedly at twice she had cost him, and she was put on the Hankow--Ichang service. Little was not disheartened, however, and set himself up in business in Chungking, among other activities specialising in insuring cargoes on the Upper Yangtze. At last in 1898, three years after the Treaty of Shimonoseki, he had the satisfaction of taking his wooden twin-screw launch Leechuan through the gorges to Chungking, acting as his own captain and chief engineer. The Leechuan was too small to carry any cargo, and needed trackers to pull her up the rapids; but this success enabled Little to enlist support from friends and form the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Company. The new company built a much larger steamer in Britain, the Pioneer, at Dennys of Dumbarton. This was a paddle steamer 180 feet long, sixty feet across the paddle boxes, drawing six feet when carrying a full cargo of 150 tons deadweight, and several hundred deck passengers. The Pioneer made her first voyage between Ichang and Chungking in 1900, a few months after two British river gunboats, Woodcock and Woodlark had also made the passage; but these only drew two to two and a half feet of water. These gunboats, later, sometimes went a further 130 miles above Chungking to Suifu, at the junction of the Yangtze and Min Rivers. A similar type of French river gunboat also made the passage between Ichang and Chungking in 1901, the Orly, under the pilotage of Captain Plant who had commanded the Pioneer on her successful voyage. In later years these, and similar gunboats, made regular patrols along the open stretch of the Upper Yangtze above the rapids and gorges, between Wanhsien and Suifu. In December 1900 the first of many serious casualties occurred on the Upper Yangtze, when the German steamer Suichsiang was wrecked at the Tungling Rapid thirty-six miles above Ichang on her maiden voyage. This and the Boxer and other political troubles delayed further attempts to establish a regular steamer service on the Upper Yangtze for many years. When this eventually came about in 1908 it was through the initiative of Captain Plant of Pioneer fame. The Pioneer was requisitioned by the Royal Navy during the Boxer troubles, and used to evacuate British subjects down the Yangtze, and rechristened H.M.S. Kinsha. Afterwards ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q In Tibet Kidling Chength ZE – CHUAN Min Sulfu 1 NAUTICAL MILES 50 WANHSIEN 100 150 "wanting Wind box Gorge B.B Dasually. Fam (Rapid) |chaug sh CHUNG KING TOP RIVER. 105* t K WEI CHAU F 1 Note: CHANG 1 T 1 HU - P ICHANG $7 Shast gl HANKOW 18t2 Yoshow 1896! Tungling LAKE ANHUI -Maturg Bluff. TRIANG POYANG LAKE I Hu- NAN F CHANGSHA 17H KIA Siantan WPPER RIVER 1 Кал Nanchang SI MIDDLE RIVER. YANGTZE RIVER LOWER RIVER Kiangsu CANAL 122 35 YELLOW SEA 1899/NANKING •Chanklang isiz WUHU 1877 TAI Hu Soochun | SHANGHA Hangchun 1897 181 30 NINGPO CHEH XIANG 120* 115* This and the other sketch-map/chart overleaf supplied by Mr. A. D. Blue and original sources are gratefully acknowledged EASTERN SEA ================================================================================