Riot and Incendiarism z% 1898 29 



of Ching-hsing-lo Cha-kwan, or the Star-view Tower Tea- 

 shop and Eating-house. From the rickety balustrade of its 

 low upper story some two dozen tipplers (of tea) gazed un- 

 interruptedly down on the barbarian hired boat on the 

 chance of the occupant exhibiting himself. The level of 

 this house, like that of most others, was, in view probably 

 of the summer floods overtopping the embankment, raised 

 some four feet above the quay, a flight of stone steps leading 

 up to its front door. Shasze, like Chung-king, has now 

 (1898) been converted by the energy of the Japanese from 

 a nominal to a real port of call for foreign steamers; its 

 formal opening with Consuls and Customs took place last 

 year. In May of this year I happened to be passing down 

 river as the foreign settlement was burning, and assisted at 

 the rescue of Mr. Neumann, the Commissioner of the 

 Imperial Maritime Customs, and of the members of the 

 China Inland Mission, who had been driven out by the mob, 

 but had fortunately escaped in boats down river. In this, 

 the tenth riot in the Yang-tse Valley, the new Customs' 

 buildings, the Japanese Consulate, with the hulks of the 

 British Consul and of the China Merchants' Steam Naviga- 

 tion Co., were totally destroyed. The cause of the riot was 

 attributed to the forcible removal of the junks from their old 

 anchorage off the foreign settlement, and to the transfer of 

 the Likin collection to the foreign Custom-house. 



Our boat is quite different to anything I had expected. 

 Being built specially for the passage of the rapids, these 

 boats never descend below Shasze, where their freight and 

 passengers are exchanged into the Hunan boats in which 

 the trafific of the lower river is carried on. We have hired 

 a small boat as more expeditious ; it is called a Shen Potse, 

 or Wife of Shen (the town of Hunan where they are built) ; 

 is about forty feet long and three deep ; carries down-stream 



