We have time to run up to the top by the tramway, and higher and higher
as we go, houses still, houses all the way, and even at the very top
there are some houses where the governor and other important people live
in summer. It has been gloomy and cloudy all day, threatening rain, but
just as we reach the summit the sun comes out in yellow glory, dropping
to the West, and all the innumerable inlets and bays are turned to gold.
The land between stands up in capes and cliffs and headlands, rather dim
and misty, with the golden water flashing between.

We are off once more and up the coast to Shanghai, the last Chinese port
we touch before going over to Japan.

Next morning we come up on deck to find a wet, clammy fog--we might be
back in England again--how astonishing!

Now and again appearing out of the folds of swathing mist we see little
islands and gaily painted fishing-boats, the owners of which seem bent
on committing suicide. The boats sometimes are junks, with the square
brown sails that we have by this time seen so often, or they are tiny
little boats; whichever it is, they seem as if they deliberately tried
to get under our bows, as you have seen village children run across in
front of motor-cars. Again and again we feel the steamer sheer off a
little to clear them, and sometimes she just succeeds in doing so. I
expect the captain's temper is being pretty severely tried up there on
the bridge. He stays there while the fog lasts, but when it clears a
little in the evening he comes down for a hasty dinner.

Then we get at him and make fresh demands on his patience by questions.
He seems to have a stock left, for he laughs good-humouredly when I
speak of the native boats. "They _do_ do it on purpose," he says; "they
think it's good joss, as they say,--good luck that is, just to cross our
bows. It means a never-ending look-out all along this coast, and nothing
cures them. All the same they're some use when one gets fogged here, for
you can generally tell where you are, to some extent, by the
fishing-boats; they run in different colours and patterns at places
along the coast, each part has its own special fashions in paint and
rig."

He has hardly time to swallow his dinner before he is back on the
bridge. It's a ticklish bit of navigation here.

We still thread our way close inshore through innumerable islands. One
of them stands up stiff and straight, pointing like an obelisk to the
sky. It is called the Fi