_Houseboat life not luxurious_. _Lose our only
wash-basin_. _Remarks on the "boy." A change in the kitchen:
questionable soup_. _Fairly low temperature_. _Troubles in the larder_.
_General arrangements on board_. _Crew's sleeping-place_. _Sacking makes
a curtain_. _Journalistic labors not easy_. _Rats preponderate_. _Gorges
described statistically_.
Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
slowly and impenetrably over all things.
A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as
black as ink.
Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north
against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting
but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the
sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars.
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