Whenever the game-bag became full, or the sun too high to be pleasant, we returned to our floating home, probably with some fish purchased from a solitary dip-net fisherman, working at a little clear spot among the tall bulrushes overhanging some tideless deep pool, the favourite resort of his legitimate prey.
About 11 a.m. our breakfast was served, that breakfast a feast for an epicure: choice and fragrantly-scented tea the principal beverage, and fish, newly plundered from the rich stores of the river, the standing dish. How shall I sing your praises, ye finny tribes of the Yang-tze? Large and small, long and short, thick and thin, flat and deep, every conceivable shape and colour, with every possible flavour appertaining to fishes of any part of the world, or the most approved delicacy, I safely pronounce ye unequalled by your brethren of foreign seas, lakes, or running streams. Above all ranks the delicious Ke-yu (chicken-fish), combining the qualities of British salmon, turbot, and whiting, equally the favourite of natives and Europeans, and in some of the distant cities eagerly purchased at fabulous prices by the wealthy gourmands.
The remnants of fish being carried away, the hot and greasy face of As-sam would be thrust into our cabin, followed by that individual's other parts, carefully bearing to his yet strong-appetited masters a brown and juicy pheasant or wild duck, done as he knew how to do them, with Chinese ingenuity and cunning spices. A plentiful supply of fruit—oranges, pears, pumelos, peaches, li-chees, and Chinese preserves—finished a cheap, though almost Sybarite repast; and last, but not least in a hot climate, one glass of ice-cold water was forthcoming.
If the day was not oppressively hot, we would while away the time with books, or my friend would bring out his soft-toned flute, and join in melody with the birds, huge dragon-flies, and other flying, creeping, and crawling things, which had all woke up to be happy in the bright sunshine.
Should we, perchance, fall in with some fellow wanderer, we met as brothers and equals; but this did not often happen. Swiftly roll the yellow waters, yellower still in the fierce sunlight, spreading away over islands, villages, and cultivated fields, far into the interior. Sometimes, when in flood, even 500 miles from its mouth, this mighty river is bounded here and there by the glittering horizon of its own waters. At one spot the roof of a tall house just shows above the stream; at another the tops of some great trees may be noticed bending along with the rushing tide.[41]
Purple, dim, and vast, rise the mountains, lazily flaps the white canvas, while through the tall bulrushes beautiful little summer ducks skim about, great "Bramley" kites wheel high above, uttering their piercing cries, and in and out of the feathery-topped bamboo strange and brilliantly-plumaged birds incessantly play. Still we glide with the flowing waters, which, from unknown mysterious regions flow onward, flow ever, towards the great outside ocean, whither for hundreds of centuries it has flowed, untired and unceasing, and whither it will flow to all eternity.
"Ho-li" is echoed along the decks, and reverentially our long-tailed cook brings burning charcoal between iron pincers. The day is too hot now for work, for talking, almost for thinking, and whilst the tide sweeps along, we slowly puff our cheroots and recline under the grateful shade of the awning in a state of semi-coma.
Lying on the flat of our Saxon backs, and lazily wreathing reflective-producing columns of smoke from our Manilas, we build castles in the air, loftier far and not so grim as those which ever and anon frown back at the mountains on either side. We dream with revolver in belt and gun at hand, ready to knock over stray unwary ducks, or savage, plundering, military Manchoos, should it become necessary. Little kings are we in our own right; obsequiously bends As-sam, pattern of boys and servants, to our lordly nod; meekly answers A-foo, lowder, captain, and pirate that he is; for the white men are strong, the Chinese think, and we must be civil to them while awake, even if we murder them when asleep.
We have no bad smells here, no wear and tear and flurry of cities; our habits are primitive, and for the most part, we own the open heavens only as our roof, and breathe the pure and uncontaminated atmosphere of the temperate zone.