WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



the front of the house ought to be made water-tight by cement. Although the builder and 

 owner of a boat may be of medium height, he should not as others have done, proportion 

 his cabin and its fittings to himself, but should bear in mind that tall men may sometimes 

 be its occupants or prospective purchasers, and therefore the space from floor to ceiling 

 amidships should not be less than be 6 ft 4 in., and the length of the berths 7 ft. 



Fixed berths, with drawers under them, are perhaps the best for a shooting trip, but 

 folding berths such as are fitted on board the Ptarmigan give more cabin room. When open 

 they are 3 feet wide and the usual height from the floor, and when locked up, with wire 

 mattress, bed and bedding inside they match in height and depth with a chest of drawers; 

 their connecting tops forming a long shelf or side-board, wonderfully convenient on the 

 occasion of a dinner party where a large floor space is required. A great advantage of this 

 style of berth is that the bed and bedding can be locked within it, secure from use by the 

 lowdah or boat-keeper. Now-a-days most people who go up-country hire a steam-launch to 

 tow their boats beyond tidal influence or even for longer distances ; and probably the time 

 is not far off when on board the model shooting-boat coolie power will be supplanted by a 

 cheap kerosene or electric motor working economically and easily managed. A small boat 

 called the Experiment has been recently built and fitted with a kerosene engine, and 

 performed several successful trips up country to the satisfaction of its owners. Being purely 

 experimental there is naturally room for improvement ; but it may, perhaps, prove the 

 forerunner of the perfect shooting-boat. Whoever can afford to build and own a first-class 

 house or shooting-boat will find it more satisfactory in the end to employ a competent 

 foreign designer to model and plan it and supervise its construction ; and the same remark 

 applies with equal cogency when a boat is to be built and furnished as inexpensively as 



possible. 



***** 



The above was written by the late Captain John Pratt Roberts in 1895 a long time resident in Shanghai as 

 dock owner and marine surveyor, who left behind him an imperishable name for ingenuity. His wonderful 

 transformation of the old garden bridge over the Soochow creek from a narrow, congested thoroughfare to a fine 

 open viaduct which lasted for years until supplanted by the present iron structure was the theme of universal 

 admiration. This only amongst many things he did for the Shanghai he loved. 



