Wallace and the Dutch East 5 3 



near Belfast and knew a lot of the members of Father's 

 family, but I think our real bond was the fact that he 

 was translating Bowditch's Practical Navigator into Chi- 

 nese. He was certainly interested when he found out that 

 "The Navigator" was Rosamond's great-grandfather. He 

 was going to take charge of the customhouse in the great 

 city of Wuchow, a city which had only recently been 

 declared open for foreign commerce. He asked us to 

 join him on the trip upriver. Wuchow is several hun- 

 dred miles inland from Canton up the west river, or the 

 Si-kiang to give it its proper name. The experience in get- 

 ting here was a most interesting one and the section of 

 China through which we passed was completely unspoiled. 



We journeyed in a small, shallow-draught river steamer, 

 locked in an enormous iron cage. This cage enclosed the 

 bridge, a little dining saloon just aft the bridge, the offi- 

 cers' cabins and a few tiny cubbyholes for passengers, and 

 a small open area of deck. The boat sailed under the British 

 jflag; she was spotlessly clean, the food was good. We had 

 several tall, bearded Sikhs and three or four Malays on 

 board, all heavily armed, as guards. All this because the 

 Chinese pirates still abundant in those days used to come 

 aboard a few at a time disguised as passengers, and then, 

 when enough of them had assembled, they would produce 

 their hidden arms and try to take the ship. This was no 

 idle rumor, for even the big passenger steamers from Hong 

 Kong to Canton caged their first-class passengers. It was 

 widely reported that pigtails were interwoven with fish- 

 hooks to discourage anyone from trying to make a cap- 

 ture by seizing a pirate's cue. 



The country through which we passed was framed in 

 ridges of high hUls, with ancient temples and lovely pa- 



