Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/311

 suffering from cold, despatched one of the boatmen ashore to buy a bottle of sam-shu. The trust which he displayed in the integrity of the messenger was no less marvellous than touching. placed his purse in the boatman's hands; "but take what you require and put back the rest. " Just before, however, I had noticed the crafty rogue carefully count the cash in this very purse, which, as it turned out, contained no more than exactly sufficient for the purchase.
 * 'I do not know how much there is here," said he, as he

On the 29th, when passing a customs' station, we were pursued and overtaken by a fiery official, who came on board, received a cigar and a glass of wine and went away greatly impressed with our respectability. We also sailed by a large cotton-junk lying wrecked on the bank, and a second one which had run aground where the water was deeper, and whose owners were now living in a mud hole, waiting till the river should rise high enough to float their craft.

At Shi-show-hien we bought a quantity of fish; among them was one described by Captain Blakiston, which carries a sword above its wide toothless mouth. This sword it is said to use for boring into the soft mud to dislodge the tiny fish, which thereupon rush for shelter down its dark capacious throat. The stomach of the specimen we purchased, contained one or two of these half-digested mud-fish. Its colour, from the spine half-way down to the belly, was dark blue or slate ; the belly was white ; the tail and fins were white and red. Length from point of sword to tip of tail, 4 feet 2 inches; length of sword, 14 inches.

Shi-show-hien was formerly held by the Taiping rebels. Here they built a fortress, whose ruins may still be seen. We were now within sight of the hill ranges in the province of Hunan, and on one hill close at hand stood a temple called the Ti-tai-shan,