Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China

Elibron Classics. Replica of 1888 edition by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington Ltd, London.

This edition comes with maps available as a free download.

Through the Yang-tse Gorges is Archibald Little’s diary of his journey up the Yangtze River from Shanghai to Chongqing by a native junk boat in 1883. Little strongly advocated the introduction of steam travel on the upper part of the river between Yichang and Chongqing, a port open to Western trade. The upper Yangtze was full of gorges and rapids which made travel treacherous; Little’s journey by junk boat took a month, whereas the journey by steamship would have taken only 36 hours. He was repeatedly rebuffed in his attempts to introduce steam travel to the upper Yangtze by the Chinese government, which he accused of standing in the way of modernization. He successfully introduced a steamship on the upper Yangtze river in 1898.