YELLOW RIVER. 
149 
Cook has described the ceremony that took place on board his boat. 
“ The Captain having placed two portraits of his deities, in wooden 
frames, on the forecastle, and arranged three cups of tea and two 
bundles of lighted sandal-wood before them, fell upon his knees, 
and after thrice bowing, bent his head three times to the ground. 
He then arose, and taking a lighted torch in his hand, walked round 
the bow of his boat, exorcising all evil spirits. Returning to the 
idols, he took up the cups, and emptied them over the side of the 
vessel. He then placed his deities on a small pile of paper, and 
having set the whole on fire, beat the gong till they were consumed ; 
an assistant at the same time discharging a volley of crackers. Re- 
suming his torch, he again traversed the bow of his boat ; and thus 
terminated the ceremony.” 
On the morning of the 6th, the Embassy anchored within half a 
mile of the junction of the canal with the Yellow river, intending to 
cross the latter on the following morning. But a favourable breeze 
having sprung up soon after mid-day, the boats got under weigh, and 
entering the Yellow river on the north-east side, crossed its stream 
in an oblique direction, and gained the mouth of the channel destined 
to receive them on the opposite shore. That part of the river crossed 
by the boats was calculated to be about a mile broad, and flowed at 
the rate of three miles an hour. It had its characteristic colour and 
proverbial turbidness. * 
The boats advanced up the channel called by the Chinese boatmen 
Tae-ping-ho, about four miles, passing a large sluice-gate on their 
right, through which the waters of the lake Hung-tse were rush- 
ing with great violence, and anchored for the night. On the fol- 
lowing morning His Excellency and the gentlemen of his suite 
landed, during the passage of the boats through a floodgate with a 
dangerous fall. This floodgate was a short distance beyond a pro- 
* “ When they (the Chinese) speak of things that are never likely to happen, they say, 
When the Yellow river shall become bright .” Ogilby’s China, p. 61 7. 
