Flower Boats and Singing Girls 93 



my boat between the Lao-ta and the li-kin officials. The 

 former wanted to escape paying tonnage dues, on the ground 

 that he was conveying a foreign Excellency. Instead of 

 frightening the officers away, as he had expected me to do, 

 I ordered him to pay, the amount on this small boat being 

 700 cash, or about three shillings. The day was hot and 

 close— 80° in the shade — and though thick clouds, to the 

 joy of the crowd, gathered round at sunset, not a drop of 

 rain fell, the clouds melting away completely, as the full 

 moon rose behind the mountains. 



Owing to the drought, a strict fast had been proclaimed 

 throughout the district, and the beef I had been expecting 

 to buy here, let alone pork or fowls, was unobtainable. 

 I had calculated upon replenishing my stores with the 

 rich products of Szechuan, but got nothing but a few 

 eggs at four times the usual cost. These, with rice 

 and coarse cabbage, will form our daily food until we 

 leave the drought country. The harbour here is gay 

 with flower-boats and singing-girls. The boats in which 

 these latter live ply up and down in the rear of the long 

 tier of junks .tied to the bank, and our evening was en- 

 livened by my Chinese having engaged one of them, which 

 was now moored under our stern. It was a picturesque 

 scene, with the moon rising over the gorge, the black, rugged 

 outlines 'of the mountains opposite sharp-cut against the 

 illuminated sky. The sing-song boat was a sampan, with 

 a steeply-arched awning amidships, and with the big sweep 

 used in these parts hanging over the high-peaked stern 

 instead :of a rudder. In the arch of the mat, lit by a big 

 paper lantern on one side, sat two gaudily-dressed, pretty- 

 looking girls, aged respectively ten and thirteen years, and 

 behind them an old man of eighty, playing the fiddle. The 

 two girls sang in a high falsetto, one accompanying on the 



