The towpath is here on the left bank, sixty feet above the present level of the river.

Barefooted trackers, often one hundred in a gang, clamber over the rocks "like a pack of hounds in full cry," each with the coupling over his shoulder and all singing in chorus, the junk they are towing often a quarter of a mile astern of them.

When a rapid intervenes they strain like bondmen at the towrope; the line creaks under the enormous tension but holds fast.
On board the junk, a drum tattoo is beaten and fire-crackers let off, and a dozen men with long ironshod bamboos sheer the vessel off the rocks as foot by foot it is drawn past the obstruction.

Contrast with this toilsome slowness the speed of the junk bound down-stream.

Its mast is shipped; its prodigious bow-sweep projects like a low bowsprit; the after deck is covered as far as midships with arched mat-roof; coils of bamboo rope are hanging under the awning; a score or more of boatmen, standing to their work and singing to keep time, work the yulos, as looking like a modern whaleback the junk races down the rapids.
Kweichou-fu, 146 miles from Ichang, is one of the largest cities on the Upper Yangtse.