Nov. j, i^4.| ' ! 
.„ ._ i *"* 
several strong looking forts, and the channel winds in 
and out between islands of different sizes, making what 
is really a very pretty bit of scenery. The morning was 
raw and cold, and the few Chinese _ boatmen, who 
crawled out of the huge staring-eyed junks to see us 
go by, looked the most forlorn objects in existence. 
A large city, Ch'ing-hai Hsien, lies on the left bank, 
and is a very busy place; just now it was asleep, and 
there was no sign of the hurry and rush that* would 
obtain a few hours later. A few of the gaunt, half- 
starved dogs, that are so much part and parcel of a 
Chinese city, were hunting about the refuse heaps; the 
only sign of life. 
Bunches of mallards and teal, and some small goggles 
of geese were soon to be seen flying back and forth, 
giving one's forefingers the trigger itch, so well known 
to those that love the gun. 
A huge, but pretty curve in the river, rejoicing in the 
plebeian name of "Pawnbroker's Bend," had to be 
traversed, with its grassy banks lined with straw- 
thatched ice houses, then the old fort, now dismantled, 
dating from the T'ai P'ing rebellion is passed, and in 
the distance we soon see the masts of the junks, looking 
like a leafless forest, indicating that our short sea 
voyage was at an end. 
These junks are often larger than a ioo-ton schooner, 
and frequently have five masts. They are met with 
all up and down the coast, from Canton to Taku, and 
are managed very well by their heathen crews, to 
whom, of course, time is no object. We tied up to a 
pontoon, and then the mad scramble of hundreds of 
coolies to get off and a similar number to get on, 
commenced. Why dozens of laden coolies are not daily 
crowded off into the river, no one seems to know. 
Our house-boat — arranged for before hand — was 
hanging to the pontoon, and it took our boys but a 
few minutes to transfer our baggage and' make, things 
snug. In a few minutes we are off up the river, with 
two men sculling behind and a man in front with a 
boat hook pushing or pulling on the scores of anchored 
boats, as the opportunity arises. In about an hour we 
passed under the huge bridge of pontoons, which is a 
very busy place, every available spot being occupied 
by sellers of fish, vegetables, etc., etc. A mile further 
up we leave the river and go into one of the many 
canals, and as the tide is too low for us to get to the 
foot of the Haulover, I will try and describe our boat 
and the way it is fitted. 
The hull is flat-bottomed, somewhat scow-shaped, 
about 25ft. in length, 7ft. beam, on which a house has 
been built, covering some three-fifths of the length. 
The" house is divided into four rooms; the first one we 
used for a dining room; the second, fitted with bunks and 
SAMPAN AND COOLIE, NINGP'o LAKE. 
lockers, we of course used as our sleeping apartments; 
then comes a small pantry, and behind that a small 
place for cooking. • The crew lived further aft, where 
they could cook their "chow" without interfering with 
us in any way. While waiting, kit bags were opened 
and comfortable old shooting clothes were put on, 
guns put together and put in the racks prepared for 
them, and in these various duties the wait of two hours 
passed quickly enough. 
The Haulover is a double inclined plane, built of 
stone, up one side of which the boats are hauled by 
windlasses, one on either side. Soft mud is spread 
under the boat to lessen the friction, and as soon as 
the huge bamboo ropes are made fast the men heave" 
on the windlasses, bringing the boats up inch by inch, 
at the same time passing very derogatory remarks 
about the boat for being so heavy, and they couple with 
the boat the builder and the builder's ances'tors for 
many generations. 
Once over the crown of- the Haulover, the boat 
coasts down by its own weight, until a swish into the 
water of the canal, and two of the crew run out with 
a long, thin towing line, and we travel at the rate of 
rather more than three miles an hour, through flat 
uninteresting country, dotted with graves or unburied 
coffins, and cut up by innumerable canals of different 
sizes. 
The canal is spanned by numerous stone bridges, 
usually bearing high sounding names, such as the 
"Bridge of Everlasting Peace" or "Lotus Flower 
Bridge," and every half mile or so we came to villages, 
with the people going about their work quietly, as if 
there were no such things as Boxers or Allied troops 
in existence, much less within a few hundred miles. 
After about three hours' towing, we arrived at the 
Upper Haulover, where the same cursing and grumbling 
are gone through by the coolies at the windlass. Probably 
they always do it, and have done it for centuries. In a 
few minutes we are in the waters of the lake, and after 
another half hour of sculling we were fairly in "Duck- 
ville." Imagine a lake of one and three quarter miles 
by three-quarters of a mile, roughly, surrounded by hills 
running up to twelve hundred feet in places, with numer- 
ous deep bays running between the hills, for the greater 
part covered with grasses of different kinds, from the 
small floating duckweed to tall reeds of eight to ten feet 
In height. Before we had gone any distance, we heard 
wild geese, and on looking closely with our glasses we 
soon made out their black heads sticking out of the grass 
about three hundred yards off. There were hundreds of 
them, and as we watched them every wildfowler knows 
the feelings we experienced. 
In our large, clumsy house-boat it was impossible to 
get near them, so we got out guns and cartridges and did 
our best to "possess our souls in patience," until our 
sampan men, with their small sampans or punts, should 
see our boat and come to meet it. This they soon did, 
and it did not take us very long to transfer ourselves, 
guns, and cartridge magazines, to two small flat-bottomed 
skiffs or sampans, and set out in our quest for the geese. 
My friend J. opened the ball before I had gone more 
than a hundred yards with a right and left from his 
double 8-bore at a small gaggle of geese that flew out of 
a bunch of grass about a hundred yards off. I saw the 
sampan coolie pick up two, then paddle off after another 
that had left the flock, and with set wings had pitched a 
HAULOVER AT FOOT OF LAKE. 
quarter of a mile away. A shot from the 12-bore brings 
him to bag, and we consider the events of the last twenty 
minutes highly auspicious, and visions of returning to 
Shanghai with the record bag of the season begin to 
float through our heads. 
My sampan coolie turned out to be a regular idiot — 
one of those men who, when he is not blowing his nose, 
is coughing or carelessly striking the sampan with his 
pole or paddle. 
The results were the same; ducks there were in plenty, 
but jumping out of the grass at impossible distances. 
J.'s gun could be heard occasionally, but so far I had not 
fired a shot, and was beginning to get desperate, when an 
old mallard delayed his departure a second or two too 
long, and came down to a long shot from the 12-bore. 
My murderous feeling passed off, and no doubt the coolie 
is living yet, and other men have experienced the same 
thirst for his blood that I had. The mallard, a blue-wing 
teal, and a coot or water-hen made up my bag that first 
afternoon, in the getting of which there was a good deal 
of luck under the circumstances. At dark we started 
back to the house-boat, expecting to find her where we 
left her, but she had gone to anchor at the other end of 
the lake, so we had a long hunt for it, which landed us, 
cold and hungry as well as disgusted, on board the boat 
long after dinner time. Seeing three fine geese hanging 
up, with half a dozen mallard and teal, to say nothing of 
a smoking hot dinner, and a cup of coffee such as only 
HOUSEBOAT ON THE LAKE. 
J.'s boy knows how to make, put me in better humor. 
Arrangements were made for another coolie to be on 
hand at daybreak, as I vowed I would not go with "the 
idiot" any more. 
After cleaning the guns and arranging to be called at 
dawn, I turned into my sleeping bag, but lay awake a 
long time listening to the noise made by the myriads of 
mallard, widgeon, teal, geese, etc., feeding. It sounded 
like a waterfall at some distance or a heavy train going 
across a bridge. At first I could hardly believe it, until 
the sampan man assured me of the fact. 
Next morning early the sampan came alongside, and 
in a few minutes we were ready for breakfast, as it was 
still much too dark to shoot. Even when we did push 
off, it was too dark to shoot with any certainty, so we 
pushed into a bunch of grass to wait for more daylight. 
While waiting, we could hear the ducks and geese in 
great numbers all about us getting ready for the morn- 
ing flight, but not one could we see, though we fiOtild 
hear the whistling of their wings on all sides. 
After a half an hour's waiting we thought we would 
try it, and we pushed ahead. What a racket the dried 
grass made on the sides of the sampan; one would think 
it would frighten every bird in the neighborhood, but it 
did not seem to make any difference. We had only gone 
a hundred yards, when up jumped something with a loud 
quack, and by holding somewhere near where the thing 
was, I managed to cut it down. On picking it up, We 
found it was a widgeon. Thousands of ducks and geese 
rose on all sides of us the instant the shot was fired; the 
roar of their countless wings was deafening, so we sat 
tight until the commotion was over, and the birds began 
to settle down again. A little further on a pair of mal- 
lards jumped, and as they crossed the shot met them, 
with the result that we bagged" them both. A couple of 
misses at single teal flighting kept me from feeling too 
well pleased with myself, as one is apt to do after a 
rather clever shot. 
With varying success we pushed here and there 
through the long grass, getting shots at all kinds of 
angles, and were pleased to see the pile of birds growing 
larger. Two consecutive shots at mallards at about fifty 
yards struck all right, but both birds flew off, apparently 
unhurt. We watched them closely, and when they had, 
flown about two hundred yards they collapsed dead in the 
air, and we gathered them both, but only after a long 
hunt in the thick grass. 
Toward evening we went to the place where some 
geese were in the habit of feeding, and as we got near 
enough we could see half a dozen feeding. We pushed 
through the long grass as carefully as possible until we 
reached the limit. From this point to the geese was fully 
a hundred and fifty yards, and it was useless to fire. 
Settling myself in the best position, I told the man to 
push ahead as quickly as possible, and by so doing we 
got some thirty yards nearer before they jumped. I got 
the old gander with the right and another with the left 
badly wounded, necessitating a shot from the cripple- 
stopper. How I gloated over those two geese, the first 
I had killed in China. I had often watched the spring 
and autumn flights until I got a pain in my neck, but 
had never had a chance to bag any of them. We waited 
in the long grass for the evening flight, but did not get 
any more geese, though the sky was full of them for 
about twenty minutes. They refused to alight for some 
reason. I had a shot after dark, but missed them, 
evidently. 
Next morning, after a hasty breakfast by candle-light, 
we were off, and before we had gone a hundred yards a 
mallard was badly missed in the uncertain light. We 
STARTING OUT AFTER DUCKS. 
pushed slowly for the place where I had got the geese on 
the previous evening, and on the way got a teal that was 
flighting high up. I sent two and a half ounces of No. 4 
shot after him from the 8-bore. When the sampan man 
picked it up he said: "Dis kind small duck no d 
good; more better shoot geese inside plenty have got." 
So what could I say but "All right ; can go inside chop- 
chop." We found about twenty geese, and stalked them 
as well as we could. When they jumped at about a hun- 
dred yards, I stopped two, and watched two more pitch 
at some distance. One of these we got, but could not 
find the other. After some time the coolie said, "I think 
China boat have catchee," and we proceeded to chase the 
boat which was at least a quarter of a mile off. Of course 
the people denied all knowledge of the goose; so I 
jumped in and searched the boat, without success. At 
last a drop of water on the floor of the boat caught my 
eye, and as a result I found the goose wrapped up in a 
lot of clothing and stuffed in between a lot of baskets 
filled with paddy. None of the people seemed a bit 
abashed, but the old women got cross when a lot of 
onlookers laughed at them, and they went for me with a 
bamboo pail and a rake. There was no harm done, how- 
ever, and we had scored, so we paddled away laughing. 
More mallards were picked up through the day, and in 
the evening we got several more geese. 
The next day I could not shoot. I felt fit enough, but 
simply could not hit anything. Duck after duck jumped 
and got away untouched, even after firing both barrels at 
them. I had heard of people having their "off days," but 
it had never come to my turn before. There was no 
doubt about its having come that day, and as time went 
on I was afraid it had come to stay. I tried every way 
of shooting that I had ever heard of, but it was all the 
same, so gave it up in disgust, and went back to . the 
houseboat with two mallards for nearly thirty shells. 
In the afternoon the luck was a little more in my favor, 
and several more ducks and four geese were added to the 
bag. Photos were taken of the boat and the bag, which 
totaled one hundred and nine head of mallards, teal, 
widgeon, and geese. 
Next morning we bid good-by to the lakes and re- 
turned to Ningp'o, where we took steamer again for 
Shanghai and work, feeling much better for the outing. 
The guns used by us were all built for us by Greener. 
