INLAND NAVIGATION.

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escape them, and every cable and rope is made tight, they have severalcapstans, by the help of which they raise it by little and little by exertingthe utmost strength of their arms, and employing levers, till they haveraised it into the upper canal, in which it may continue its voyage.This labour is tedious, toilsome, and exceedingly dangerous. Theywould be wonderfully surprised could they behold with what ease and.facility one man alone, who opens and shuts the gates of our locks andsluices in Europe, makes the longest and heaviest laden barks andbarges securely to ascend and descend.

" I have observed In some places in China, where the waters of twocanals have no communication together; yet for all that they makethe boats to pass from one to the other, notwithstanding the level maybe different above fifteen feet: to effect which they proceed in thismanner: at the end of the canal they have built a double glacis, orsloping bank of freestone, which uniting at the point extends itself onboth sides up to the surface of the water. When the bark is in thelower canal, they hoist it up, by the help of capstans, to the plane of thefirst glacis, so far, till being raised to the point, it falls back again by itsown weight along the second glacis (I suppose, instead of falling backagain, that it falls forwards) into the water of the upper canal, whereit fkuds away to a considerable distance, like an arrow out of a bow; andthey make it descend after the same manner proportionably. I cannotimagine how these barks, being commonly very long and heavy laden,escape being split in the middle, or having their backs broken, whenthey are poised in the air upon this acute angle; for, considering thelength, the lever must certainly have a strange effect upon it: yet do Inot hear that any accidents happen in consequence of it. I have passedthat way several times; and all the precaution they take when they donot choose to go on shore during the operation, is to tie themselves fast tosome cable, or rope, for fear of being tossed froj^Hmv to poop (it shouldbe from stern to stem, or from poop to prow).

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