28 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. II. 
CHAPTER II. 
Leave Hang-chow-foo — A China Passage-boat — Scenery and na- 
tural Productions — Eemarkable Hills — Our Fellow-passengers — 
A Smoker of Opium — I am discovered to be a Foreigner — City 
of Yen-chow-foo — A Chinaman cheats a Chinaman ! — The 
Eiver and Water-mills — A valuable Palm-tree — Birds — 
Lime-kilns and green Granite — Tea-plant met with — The new 
Funereal Cypress discovered — Its Beauty — How its Seeds 
were procured — Strange Echo — Eiver and Land Beggars — 
Charity. 
When the next morning dawned we got under way and 
steered out into the river, which is here three or four 
miles in width. The boat was strongly built, flat-bot- 
tomed, and very sharp both fore and aft. Ordinary boats, 
such as those seen at Shanghae, would be perfectly useless 
here, for they would soon be broken to pieces on the 
rocks and stones which abound in this shallow but rapid 
river. 
We were deeply laden with cargo, and carried about 
twenty passengers. The cargo was packed in the bottom 
of the boat, and the passengers above it. Two rows of 
sleeping-berths were constructed along each side of the 
boat, and a passage between them, so that both passen- 
gers and boatmen could walk from stem to stern without 
any inconvenience. The first-class passengers occupied 
the side-berths, and their servants and coolies slept in 
the passage. 
