Excerpt from On the Road to Tibet When the wind was favourable we sailed, but it never is favourable for any length of time, on account of the huge serpentine bends which the river takes, sweeping as it does round three parts of a circle, to turn abruptly on itself and twist the other way.[2] When t sailing we tracked, with four or five men on the tow-line, and under these conditions thirty miles was a good day's journey. Progress however, if t breathless, was steady for several days, and then came disaster. The heavens were opened, down came the rain, and for three days the cloud capy dripped mercilessly upon us. To sail was impossible, for there was wind to track was out of the question. For the banks gave foothold. Central and Western China had been very hardly handled by the unprecedented rains of early autumn, and in many parts of Hupeh, Honan and Shensi roads were impassable, river banks bursting, crops ruined, and food at famine prices. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.