The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

UP THE YANG-TSE-KIANG. 329
the 1 ang-tse-kiang a passage from Shanghai to Ilaii-kow cost four Iniiidred
dollars, and the price of freight was in proportion. For several years
the Americans had a monopoly of the business, and could do pretty much
as they liked. When the opposition began, the fares went down, down,
down ;
and at the time our friends were in China the passage to llandvow
was to be had for twenty-four dollars— quite a decline from four hundred
to twenty-four.
The boys had expected to find the boats in China small and incon-
venient. What was their astonishment to find them like the great steam-
ers that ply on the North Eiver, or from New York to Fall Eiver or
Providence. They found the cabins were large and comfortable, though
they were not so numerous as on the American waters, for the reason
that there were rarely many passengers to be carried. The captain, pilots,
engineers, and other officers were Americans, while the crew were Chinese.
The managers of the company were Chinese, but they left the control of
the boats entirely in the hands of their respective captains. One boat had
a Chinese captain and officers, but she was a small affair, and, from all that
could be learned, the managers did not find their experiment of running
with their own countrymen a successful one.
At the advertised time the three strangers went on board the steamer
that was to carry them up the river, and took possession of the cabins as-
signed to them. Their only fellow-passengers were some Chinese mer-
chants on their way to Nanking, and a consular clerk at one of the Brit-
ish consulates along the stream. The captain of the steamer was a jolly
New-Yorker, who had an inexhaustible fund of stories, which he was never
tired of telling. Though he told dozens of them daily, Frank i-emarked
that he was not like historj^ for he never repeated himself. Fred remem-
bered that some one had said to him in Japan that he would be certain of
a pleasant voyage on tlie Yang-tse-kiang if he happened to fall in with
Captain Paul on the steamer Kiaiuj-ching. Fortune had favored him, and
he had found the steamer and the captain he desired.
Frank observed that the steamer had been provided with a pair of eyes,
ndiich were neatly carved on wood, and painted so as to resemble the human
eye. The captain explained that this was in deference to the Chinese
custom of painting eyes on their ships and boats ; and if he looked at the
first boat, or other Cliinese craft, large or small, tliat he saw, he would dis-
cover that it had eyes painted on the bow. This is the universal custom
throughout China; and though a native may have a suspicion that it does
no good, he would not be willing to fly in the face of old custom. In case
he should leave his craft in blindness, and any accident befell her, he