Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/400

308 large tanks on either side of the ship each holding half a ton of live fish— Canton river salmon, a sort of lamprey, and others; water is always being pumped in.

On arrival at Hong-Kong the sides of thetanks, which are the side the ship, are thrown open, and out pours a  silver flood of live fish into the waiting boats, which race each other to market, as the first boatload fetches a higher price than the others. It was a wonderful sight to see this silver flood issuing from the ship's side. Another wonderful sight on this lower deck was to see the seven hundred Chinese passengers, packed there like sardines with all their goods and gear. They sprawled about in every attitude, and we had to step over them and almost on them to see the tanks. They were, many of them, smoking opium. Of course, all these were kept padlocked down under heavy gratings, above which stood heavily armed Chinese guards; and in the dining-saloon, as on the Macao boat, were cutlasses and loaded guns for the use of the passengers in case of emergency.

If they had wanted to they could easily have "done for" the captain and us two whilst amongst them. It is a curious state of affairs.

The naval people in Hong-Kong were at this time all down on an indiscreetly tongued young officer. At meals they are all waited on by their Chinese "boys," and this youth one day remarked that he wondered the Chinese boys did not at a given signal fall upon them and cut their throats, much to the edification of the said Chinese boys, who might thereby have been prompted to do it.

On 23rd January I was standing in the hall of the Hong-Kong hotel when an American, with his hat in his hand, came up to me in a grave