Page:Ports of the world - Canton (1920).djvu/25

CANTON On either side of the muddy river are plantations devoted to the cultivation of rice and bananas, and at intervals little groups of houses come into view —shadowy through the dark curtain of night which has definitely fallen over the land.

The river pirates do not make themselves heard or seen on this particular trip: but the passengers, assured that it might well have happened otherwise, are told that fully 20,000 pirates live along the Chukiang River and in and near Canton. Occasionally the outside world hears of passengers and crew being murdered and a ship burned by the pirates on the Chukiang River; then all precautionary measures are redoubled.

Expeditions are sometimes sent out by the Government in search of river pirates. Upon the successful conclusions of such trips scores of the half-wild captives are executed. Sometimes the Government raiders are defeated, and the pirates, emboldened by their success, make further forays against steamships and drive, for a time, many of the smaller craft from the Hongkong-Canton river trade.

There are three or four companies operating steamers between Hongkong and Canton, one of them being known as the British Line (the Hongkong and Macao Steamboat Company). Steamers