eature was the flight of fishing-boats,
which at each daybreak put out to sea, literally in flocks; so
numerous were they. As I was every morning on deck at that hour,
attending the weighing of the anchor, the sight became fixed upon my
memory. The wind being on their beam, and so fresh, they came lurching
along in merry mood, leaping livelily from wave to wave, dashing the
water to either hand. Besides the poetry of motion, their peculiar
shape, their hulls with the natural color of the wood,--because oiled,
not painted,--their bamboo mat sails, which set so much flatter than
our own canvas, were all picturesque, as well as striking by novelty.
Most characteristic, and strangely diversified in effect, as they
bowled saucily by, were the successive impressions produced by the
custom of painting an eye on each side of the bow. An alleged proverb
is in pigeon English: "No have eye, how can see? no can see, how can
sail?" When heading towards you, they really convey to an imagination
of ordinary quickness the semblance of some unknown sea monster, full
of life and purpose. Now you see a fellow charging along, having the
vicious look of a horse with his ears back. Anon comes another, the
quiet gaze of which suggests some meditative fish, lazily gliding,
enjoying a siesta, with his belly full of good dinner. Yet a third has
a hungry air, as though his meal was yet to seek, and in passing turns
on you a voracious side glance, measuring your availability as a
morsel, should nothing better offer. The boat life of China, indeed,
is a study by itself. In very many cases in the ports and rivers, the
family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the
man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars;
while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take
the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient.
Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to
lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near
putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom.
Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old
faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome
cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street fighting, fury
in each face, teeth set and showing, nostrils distended with rage, and
a hand of each gripping fast the other's pigtail, which he seemed to
be trying to drag