On the Yangtze River, houseboats have a cabin with bunks, table, and
a mast, that should go up and down so that you can get under bridges
made of long blocks of stone; they also have a huge sail made of
matting. You put your cook, coolies, and provisions aboard, get your
passport, and are off through merchant ships, junks, men-of-war,
sampans, etc., up the river, and through the pass where they saw the
fire from Shanghai and got up in time to save the captain of a craft
where the men had been tied to the masts and the ships set on fire
by pirates. Sometimes the coolies pull you with a rope; sometimes
push you with poles; sometimes you sail. When you please you land and
shoot pheasants scared out of Chinese graves (big and little mounds
covered with reeds etc.) by bones thrown in, plenty of bones, remains
of bamboo stockades used in the Taeping rebellion still standing.
There are duck, plover, and snipe; and now and then you pass through a
Chinese village. Natives stare and big dogs get excited. It is as well
to keep a watch, at night particularly when near any soldier junks, as
we were at Foochow.
[Illustration: On the Yangtze Kiang.]
[Illustration: A Pulperia.]