Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/279

 in a fine steamer belonging to a private line, engaged in the tea trade during the greater portion of the year, but at that time making a cruise northward till the Hankow tea-market should be open. As we neared Shanghai the glass indicated either that a typhoon was approaching, or else that we were just upon its verge. The latter conclusion was a true one. It turned out that we had followed in the wake of a hurricane, and thus our experience afforded a good example of the limit- ed area to which the circles of these typhoons are frequently confined. We had encountered nothing save calms and light winds throughout our passage ; and yet when we entered Shanghai river we found many ships disabled, some of them swept clear to the deck — masts, spars and rigging having all gone over the side. Here we had to wait twelve hours till a licensed pilot came on board; and when that individual did at last make his appearance, he gravely remarked that he was only a fifteen-foot man, but that he could make it all right with another pilot of superior depth to take us up. What he meant to convey to us was that his license only allowed him to pilot vessels drawing fifteen feet. An unfortunate accident occurred as we were steaming up the Wong-poo to the wharf at Shanghai. The Chinese have a superstitious belief that bad luck will attend their voyage, if they fail at starting to cross the bows of a vessel as she sails across their track ; and so, as we steamed on, we perceived a native trading-boat making frantic efforts with sails and sculls to pass under our bows. The whistle was plied, but in vain. On they pulled to their own certain destruction. The engines could not be backed amid such a crowd of shipping, and I was gazing helplessly over our bulwarks when we came crashing through the timbers of the fated craft. There was a yell of despair, and the wreck was next seen drifting down