China. Travels Between the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers

The Yangtze River has its source in the high glacial marshlands of Tibet where it is but a faint trickle. Gathering strength with the snowmelt and momentum from many other rivulets, it commences its long trip east through limestone gorges. Today it reaches the calm and flattened waters of the massive lake south of Chongching that has been formed by the Yangtze River Dam at Yichang. The 'Dragon' that for thousands of years had been written about the giant beast curling its way through the drama of the Three Gorges, is forever tamed. The naked trackers who, for centuries in feet clad only in straw slippers, pulled or guided river boats up and downstream, now haul tourists up tributary streams in narrow long boats. Their tow paths are forever lost to the flood waters, along with countless ancient cities such as Fengdu and Fengjie. The dam's construction has been likened to that of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal.