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C H I N A. 



" required time for hatcliing. The ducklings are fed with little 

 *' craw-fiQies and crabs, boiled and cut fmall, and afterwards 

 *' mixed with boiled rice, and in about a fortnight fhift for 

 <' themfelves, when the Cbinefe provide them an old ftep-mother, 

 <^ who leads them where they are to find provender for them- 

 *' felves, being firft put on board -xSampane^ or boat, which is 

 <' deftined for their habitation, and from which the whole flock, 

 *' often to the amount of three or four hundred, go out to feed, 

 *' and return at command. This method is ufed nine months 

 " out of the twelve (for in the colder months it does not fuc- 

 *' ceed) and is fo far from a novelty, that it may be every 

 " where feen ; but more efpecially about the time of cutting the 

 " rice and gleaning the crop, when the mafters of the duck 

 " Sampanes row up and down the river, according to the oppor- 

 *' tunity of procuring food, which is found in plenty at the tide 

 *' of ebb on the rice plantations, as they are overflowed at high 

 *' water. It is curious to fee how the ducks obey their mafter ; 

 " for fome thoufands, belonging to different boats, will feed at 

 <' large on the fame fpot, and on a fignal given will follow their 

 " leader to their refpedlive Sampanes^ without a flranger being 

 " found among them. This is ftill more extraordinary if we 

 *' confider the number of inhabited Sampanes on the Tigris, 

 " fuppofed to be no lefs than forty thoufand, w^hich are moored 

 *' in rows clofe to each other, with a narrow palTage at intervals 

 <' for boats to pafs up and down the river. The Tigris at Canton 

 " is fomewhat wider than the Thames at London, and the whole 

 " river is there covered in this manner for the extent of at leaft 

 *' a mile." 



The 



